- Kansas City Journal-Post
The Kansas City Journal-Post was a
newspaper inKansas City, Missouri from 1854 to 1942 which was the oldest newspaper in the city when it folded.It started as a weekly "The Kansas City Enterprise" on September 23, 1854, a year after the city's founding and shortly after the "The Public Ledger" had folded. Kansas City's first Mayor
William S. Gregory and future mayorsMilton J. Payne andE. Milton McGee along with city fathersWilliam Gillis ,Benoist Troost ,Thompson McDaniel ,Robert Campbell and Kansas City's first bank and biggest store Northrup and Chick pooled $1,000 to start it.William A. Strong was its first editor andDavid K. Abeel was the first publisher. It operated above a tavern at Main Street and the Missouri River in theRiver Market neighborhood.In 1855, Strong enlisted another future mayor
Robert T. Van Horn to take over the paper. Van Horn bought it for $250 and retained Abeel as publisher.In 1857 it became "The Western Journal of Commerce" and in 1858 it became "The Kansas City Daily Western Journal of Commerce".
During the lead up to the
American Civil War the paper was to espouse the popular Missouri view that the status quo should not be disrupted. Missouri should remain in the Union and remain a slave state. When the war erupted Van Horn enlisted in the Union Army and the paper became staunchly Republican.The paper was to actively encourage city fathers to invest to get the
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad to build the first bridge across the Missouri River at Kansas City. The construction of theHannibal Bridge in 1869 was to make Kansas City the dominant city in the region.In 1880
William Rockhill Nelson startedThe Kansas City Star which would become the Journal-Post's primary competitor.In 1896 Van Horn sold the paper to
Charles S. Gleed andHal Gaylord who renamed it "The Kansas City Journal".In 1906
Fuller Brooker founded The Kansas City Post proclaiming in its first issue::It will be our purpose in politics to avoid participation in factional disputes and personal quarrels, and seek the general welfare of the Democratic party as a whole, and that only.
In 1909
Denver Post publisherFrederick Gilmer Bonfils andHarry Tammen bought the Post withJ. Ogden Armour being the silent partner. [ [http://www.dnr.missouri.gov/shpo/nps-nr/84002568.pdf Bonfils Building, 1200 Grand, National Register Application - July 1982] ] The Post with itstabloid format, red headlines andyellow journalism was to tie its star to the rise of theTom Pendergast political machine.In 1921
Walter Dickey bought the Journal. He bought the Post in 1922 and combined their operations and 22nd and Oak. Dickey poured money into the papers to compete with the Star ultimately bankrupting his own lucrative clay pipe manufacturing company. The papers combined as "The Kansas City Journal-Post" on October 4, 1928.Dickey died in 1931 and his home was to become the first building at what would become the
University of Missouri-Kansas City .In 1938 with the beginning of the collapse of the Pendergast machine, the paper jetisoned the Post name and became "The Kansas City Journal". Also in 1938 Journal photographer
Jack Wally ran anundercover photo expose of gambling houses under Pendergast that ran inLife Magazine .The paper's last publication was on
March 31 ,1942 . The paper's demise spelled the end of the last daily compeition to the Star.References
* [http://library.umkc.edu/spec-col/journalpost/jp-intro.htm UMKC.edu history of paper]
External links
* [http://www.vintagekansascity.com/100yearsago 100-Year-Old Weblog of the Kansas City Journal]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.