Lessons learned, and same as it ever was

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

When the first editions of USA Today hit the streets in the fall of 1982, I was taking my first college journalism classes. Many of my professors in J-school made fun of it — initially.
Al Neuharth, chairman of Gannett at the time, and the father of "Nations's paper," recalled a less-than-warm reception.
"Most media critics brushed us off quickly. Linda Ellerbee, then a popular late-night news commentator on NBC, paraphrased our "non-smudge" ink promotion with this sarcastic comment: "USA TODAY doesn't rub off on your hands or your mind." Many critics compared us to McDonald's, as the "fast food of journalism."
Neuharth, however was vindicated and the paper, by its 30th birthday, had the largest print circulation in the country and second largest total circulation at 1,817,446 (1,701,777 print and 115,669 digital). It trailed "The Wall Street Journal's"  2,118,315 (1,566,027 print and 552,288 digital) at the time.

As Neuharth noted in 2012, "The fact is more people across the USA and around the world want more news and information today than ever before. They also want it in different ways — in print, on the air, on the Web. As long as news providers give it to them when they want it, where they want it and how they want it, they not only will survive but also thrive. That includes newspapers, if they also adapt to new ways of distributing the news, which they generally gather more professionally than any other media."

Always, there is the struggle for relevance. In the San Juans of Colorado (where I grew up) the arrival of a newspaper meant the town had also arrived. Creede, for example, in the 1890s started out with four newspapers. Telluride had as many six papers operating in the heyday. And locally, there was as many as seven different papers practicing the craft in Cripple Creek District, at least two of them as daily publications. But, just as today, nothing is guaranteed. 

"Rico, for instance, during the first twenty years of its life had ten different newspapers, only one lasting longer than six years, " notes John L. Ninneman and Duane Smith in their recent book "San Juan Bonanza."

Mining areas, though desperate for service provided by a newspaper, often struggled for the technology to catch up. Boomtown Fairbanks in Alaska, with about 1,000 people, and only 387 houses either finished or in the process of construction, six saloons, and no churches in 1903, had one of the most expensive newspapers in the world at the time, at $5 per copy for "The Fairbanks Miner."

The editorial policy of The Fairbanks Miner was straightforward, wrote Terrance Cole in his book "E.T. Barnnette" about the founder of Fairbanks.

"Published occasionally at Fairbanks, Alaska, by a stampeder who is waiting for the snow to melt and the ice to go out in the rivers... If you don't like our style, fly your kite and produce your 30-30,"  wrote Judge James Wickersham, who started the "Miner" to raise cash to finance a trip to climb Mt. McKinley. Wickersham and a public stenographer named G. Carlton Woodward, who had brought a small Empire green-ribboned typewriter with him from Dawson in Yukon territory, typed the entire issue. They made seven copies, and three were put in the saloons and one was mailed to Senator Charles Fairbanks. Only one issue of "The Fairbanks Miner" was published because the ice went out, just as they were going to press. 

The landscape for newspaper survival outside the mining districts was not much better.

The first newspaper in Monument was established by A.T. Blachly in 1878, and called the "Mentor." It only lasted until 1880, but the Monument Journal picked up the torch  briefly. By 1885, another paper, called the El Paso County Register was going and survived until 1889. In 1890, another publication, the "Monument Recorder" lasted less than a year, but about the same time, the "Monument Messenger" arrived and lasted until 1911.  A replacement didn't hit the scene again until "Preacher Sam," who lived near Monument Lake created the "Lake View Press" in the 1950s. The "Columbine Herald" appeared on the scene about the same time. Then in the 1960s, the Tribune's forerunner, the Monument Palmer Lake News, which later included the Woodmoor News, was first published by George Kobolt of Castle Rock. In 2014, the Tribune celebrated its 50th year.

Critics of print in general, and our paper specifically, brush us off as relic of some not-to-distant past. They talk of a bygone era where the country editor might lead varied life, with useful knowledge in every subject,  good debater, good listener, and instructive talker; generous to the limit of his ability.

"He had been from devil up to pressman in a printing office," wrote M.V. Atwood in "The Country Newspaper" describing this individual. 

"He could sweep floors; clean cuspidors, set type; make up forms; run job press, cylinder, stitcher, binder, or engine; could repair them all if they got out of order; could write news, or editorial; correct proof; and sell papers on the street. He learned all he knew in the office. The modern efficiency and 'specializing' methods have eliminated this relic of olden times, but there is just as much to be learned in the printing office, as there was then," wrote Atwood in 1923.

Don't count us out in the innovation arena, and be careful of, and perhaps show respect for, the idea that there is just as much to be learned in the local paper today— as there ever has been.
###

Alaskan Cripple Creek shows plenty of color

Mining at the Cripple Creek mine covered about one square mile beneath and south-southeast of the town of Ester, Alaska. 

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

As it turns out, there are about 15 different streams in Alaska that are called 'Cripple Creek,' but as usual, the one most remembered — is the one where the gold was.
That one, first recorded in 1904, was very rich and flows down Chena Ridge into the Chena River, not far from Fairbanks.
The mining at the Cripple Creek mine covered about one square mile beneath and south-southeast of the town of Ester, Alaska.
The Cripple Creek pay channel was described as an ancient channel of Ester Creek which branched from the present course of Ester Creek roughtly opposite the mouth of Ready Bullion Creek.
"The auriferous gravels at Cripple Creek are very deep; they are overlain by several hundred feet of barren gravel and reworked loess or so-called muck that washed into valley from the surrounding hillsides. Beds of clay several feet thick were found at various elevations. Subsequent to deposition of the gravels there had been considerable faulting and tilting that has resulted in grades of 5 to 8 percent on the surface of the gravel as well as the bedrock The gravels vary in thickness from 60 to 167 feet; these are overlain by muck that varied in thickness from 100 to 187 feet. 

There was almost certainly deep, early drift mining on Cripple Creek in the early days of mining in the Fairbanks district but it was probably attributed to Ester Creek mine (FB034) or simply Ester," according to J.C.. Boswell, in his book "History of Alaskan operations of United States Smelting, Refining and Mining Company published by Mineral Industry Research Laboratory, University of Alaska, (1979).
United States Smelting, Refining, and Mining Company (U.S.S.R. and M) consolidated most of the property in Ester and Cripple Creeks in 1930, and this was one of the major centers of placer mining in the Ester area until the dredges stopped mining in the late 1960s. U.S.S.R. and M. began extensive churn drilling on the Cripple Creek pay channel in 1933; they began stripping muck in May 1935 and barren gravel in September 1939. Dredge No. 10 started digging in August 1940 and, except for a closure during World War II, it continued on working Cripple Creek until 1964. It was the last dredge U.S.S.R. and M. operated in the Fairbanks area and remains in its pond south of Ester, says Joylon Ralph, founder of Minedat.org.
One interesting aspect about the Cripple Creek, Alaska, mining operation was the role that water and hydraulic mining played.
The Chena Pump House is emblematic of the engineering expertise and expense expended to make hydraulic mining work in the region.
Around 1930, the chief engineer of the company (Fairbanks Exploration Company, a subsidiary of U.S.S.R. and M) derived a scheme of mining Cripple Creek by pumping water from the Chena River up over Chena Ridge.
"This provided enough pressure to operate the hydraulic giants which were used to strip the overburden. The pump was completed and began operation in 1933," according to the Pump House application to National Historic Record.
"Inside the building were ten, 14", double suction centrifugal pumps rated at 6000 gallons per minute against 220 foot head and direct connected 400 hp electric motors. These pumps were mounted in a series, with tow each unit, through three, 26" pipelines against a total head of 440 feet. Water was delivered from there through a three mile ditch to the site of the mining operations where it was used for stripping and thawing and for make-up water for the dredge pond when needed."
According to Register application, The Fairbanks Exploration Company ceased operation about 1958, and the building set empty, surrounded by junk pipe, and rusting equipment, overgrown with willows,   until 1978. It was reconstructed by its present owners as a restaurant and bar.
"The basic structure of the building remains unchanged, and the original corrugated siding has been retained. On the interior, the main portion of the original building remains as an unbroken space housing the restaurant and bar,"  according to 1982 Register application that was subsequently approved.
In describing the significance of mining in this location, the Register information goes on:
"The dredging of the Cripple Creek drainage was one of the most complex undertaken by the company. The time, effort, and equipment put into developing the prospect suggest that it was probably one of the richest area mined. The huge Dredge No. 10, constructed for the project in 1940 was the largest ever operated by the company, and the walking dragline, specially constructed for the stripping of barren gravels unique to the area, was the largest in North America at the time of its construction."