The Newspaper - Part 1

The Modest Beginning of the Press in Montana; Territorial Press Association Organized in 1885

First Published in the Hysham Echo August 12, 1926

(by Dan R. Conway)

The location of the town was in the upper valley of the Madison river, at the head of Alder Gulch, elevated on a sloping hillside, and with a background that was rocky and sparsely wooded. It had one lone street which was lined on either side by false-fronted, and, for the most part, crudely constructed business houses. It had many houses that were built after as many different fashions, the more substantial of these being of logs or adobe. In its day, with a population of a few thousand souls, it was, perhaps, as lively and wicked a place as this country ever knew. It was the metropolis of Montana Territory - the seething center of the New Eldorado - Virginia City.
If we compare this simple picture of the frontier with the present Montana, its railroads, its agriculture, its industry and commerce, its educational and recreational facilities, its many cities of business palaces and beautiful homes, we may realize what energy and enterprise have accomplished in the last sixty years.
It is not within the scope of this little sketch, nor is it the purpose, to trace step by step the material growth of Montana, nor its development in detail along lines of modern civilization and culture, but rather to point to a few milestones of progress in the history of one of Montana’s greatest institutions - the newspaper.

Virginia City in 1863

Virginia City was at the zenith of its fame in the years 1863 and 1864. it was then that the thousands of “pilgrims” were thronging in from every point of the compass, wildly filing on claims. And, as the “diggings” were mostly shallow, and the gold, in many places very plentiful, it was but a short time till hundreds were in possession of bulging pokes of clean, yellow gold.
To most of those who were thus fortunate, this was a sudden rise from poverty to riches, which was, as is usually the case, followed by a state of wild recklessness. Saloons and hurdy-gurdy houses, of which there were many, were crowded night and day, and the various games of chance with as many clever “sharps”, took heavy toll without mercy or respect of person, but leaving little regret, for the gold was plentiful, and each evening always brought a new supply.
There are few left who know and it is difficult for the rest of us to conceive the true picture of this turbulent and amazing life that marked Virginia City sixty-three years ago, when thousands of struggling, seething, money-crazed human beings gathered from the four corners of the earth, swarmed that single street day and night. It was a life, perhaps without parallel at any time or any where on this continent.

Arrival of Daniel W. Tilton

Picture this street, if you can one bright summer day in ‘63, when young Daniel W. Tilton, 24-year-old native of New York state, stepped down from the stagecoach to try his fortune in a new business on this new frontier.
Perhaps Tilton’s few months’ sojourn in Colorado had hardened him to the scene that here confronted him. At any rate, we are told he was apparently unmoved by anything other than a determination to establish himself in a business way. Thus, we find him purchasing a lot and erecting thereupon a log store building which he had floored with whipsawed lumber, purchased at the rate of 25 cents per square foot. Here he established Montana’s first bookstore, and incidentally, the territory’s first printing house; for, among other things that accompanied his wagon-load of books, magazines and newspapers, was an army hand press, which he employed to advantage, as the occasion required. Here he sold newspapers that were three and four months old for as high as 50 cents each, and ordinary paper-covered dime novels at $2.50, all paid for in gold dust.

The First Printing Press

In his later years, this first Montana printer, told of having printed dance tickets for one dollar each, the price of admission to the dance being $25 in gold dust. This printing press is believed to have been the first brought into the Territory and it now reposes in the state historical library at Helena, presented to that institution by W. W. Cheeley, president of the Montana Newspaper association, who at one time was publisher of the Virginia City Madisonian.

The First Newspaper

It was just one year following this (on August 27, 1864), that John Buchanan, who had arrived in Virginia City with a meagre equipment, established the Montana Post, the Territory’s first newspaper. Buchanan had published but two issues, when this same Daniel Tilton, foreseeing a wonderful opportunity for big profit, purchased the plant and business for $3,000. Under Tilton’s management, the business thrived immensely. The miners, eager for news of any sort, were willing to pay almost any price for reading matter, and Tilton took advantage of this condition.

An Era of High Prices

The paper was published every Saturday and the subscription price was $8.00 per year. An estray notice brought a $20 bill or $10 in gold dust, while the minimum price for political announcements was $20. Letterheads commanded a price of from $15 to $20 per half ream, and, a job of 200 ball admission tickets brought the neat little sum of $25. When the news of Lincoln’s assassination reached Virginia City, handbill extras were eagerly sought and purchased at 50 cents a copy. The rate for display advertising ranged from as high as $8.00 per column inch to a slightly lower scale of monthly and yearly contracts.

The Early-Day Printers

Fabulous prices these might seem. On the other hand, the expense connected with conducting a printing house in those days was likewise enormous. For instance, printers received $1.25 per thousand ems for hand composition (and there was no such thing as a typesetting machine). It was nothing unusual for an ordinary printer to receive as high as $100 per week for his services. But these printers, as was often the case with mechanics of the “old school” were a happy good-hearted crew, who gave little thought to the morrow, squandering their earnings in the saloon and dance hall, as fast as they received them.
Among the distinguished people who were editorially contributors to the columns of the “Post”, were Colonel Wilbur F. Sanders, Judge H. N. Blake, Judge Chumasero and Captain James H. Mills. A few weeks after purchasing the plant, Tilton sold a third interest to Benjamin Dittes. Other newspapers entered the field from time to time, but this original enterprise continued and flourished in Virginia City until ‘68 when Tilton sold out to Dittes and the latter moved the plant to Helena.

The Old Stone Building

An editorial in the Montana Post in the issue of June 10, 1865, gives an account of the removal of the paper and its equipment to its new home in a comfortable stone building, which still stands in the old town, and a picture of which is reproduced herewith. The editorial read as follows:
“On the 6th inst., we bade adieu to log walls with mud roofs and entered into the handsome and commodious stone building erected on Jackson street, to the rear of, and adjoining the City Book store, which is destined to be used as a general printing office.
“Leaning back in a room 50 by 20 by 10, lighted by four gothic windows, and looking as clean and white as a printing office should. The floor is of five-inch battens, tongued and grooved. Beneath our feet is the storehouse for goods and material; above us are two roofs; the lowermost flat, covered with gravel a foot deep, and enclosed between fire walls rising 18 inches above the joists. From the top of these, springs a quarter-pitch roof. The whole edifice is fireproof, and the appearance, solidity and finish of the structure reflects the greatest credit on the contractor, Mr. Singleton; the masons, Messrs, Perry and Snell; and the carpenters, Messrs. R. Delacy and David VanDewirken.

Recalls Days of Stampede

“It is just two years from this day that the stampede from Bannack struck Alder Gulch at the foot of the branch crossing Jackson street, some rods below us. The place was then a wilderness, without a house, a cabin, or even a wigwam. Those who had tents pitched them; others made wakiups of the brush, and many laid down with the star-lit heavens for a canopy. The gulch was then covered with a growth of alders and willows, so thick that passage across was in most places an athletic feat of no small magnitude; but the fire and the miners have left it bare of the last bush long ago.

“Of the first discoverers and the two hundred and fifty enterprising men who settled here at the time of the ‘Great Stampede,’ very few now remain in town. Many of them have made their fortunes and gone home; while of the rest, some have found their graves in these mountain wilds, and others are “Scattered far and wide. By mountain, stream and sea.”

News-gathering in the days of Montana’s first newspaper, was the most complex of problems. There were then no telegraphic lines within the Territory; no railroad came within 1,200 miles of Virginia City, and the few western newspapers that found their way into the editorial sanctum of the Post were of little value to the editor. The telegraphic news was gleaned from Salt Lake newspapers as they arrived through the overland mails. It was a slow-moving process that required utmost patience. The type was set by hand; the printing was the product of a hand press. And, yet, withal (excepting the isolated location), this equipment of Montana’s first newspaper plant was on a par with that of many of those farther to the east in those days.
This was the beginning of Montana’s newspaper industry. And, it was here, too, that the first Montana book was printed. It was in the office of this same “Post”, and under the direction of this same Daniel W. Tilton, that was printed the first edition of 5,000 copies of Thomas Dimsdale’s history of the Vigilantes. This little paper-covered volume sold for $2.00 in gold dust or $2.25 in coin or greenbacks.

The Madisonian

The Post was followed into this virgin newspaper field by various publications during the short space of a few years, the most important of which was the Virginia City Madisonian which came into being under the guiding hand of Thomas Deyarmon in 1873, and continued as a very creditable newspaper for many years, It still survives, a consolidation with the Times, and published as the Madisonian-Times, by Thomas Castle, and it covers its field as thoroughly as any newspaper in the state. Print this post