Former publisher recalls the "good old days."

Roy Robinson, and his wife Carol Lee purchased the the Ute Pass Courier in the summer of 1966, shortly after the untimely passing of its founder, Agnes Schupp. Roy later went on to a long career in newspapers and printing, and was managing seven newspapers and four radio stations in Graham, Texas, for Media-News Group, when I tracked him down in 2003.

I have seen him several times since, and my understanding is that he finally has retired. He was inducted into the Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame in ceremonies in 2012.
"Courier presswork was immediately moved from Castle Rock to Cripple Creek, where the Courier shared a two-pages-at-a-time Chief 22 offset press with the Cripple Creek Gold Rush, published then by Roy's father, B.G. Robinson. It had a hand-fed Liberty folder that finished the production process.
"Upon acquisition of the Courier, I vowed to never print fewer than eight pages or fewer than 1,000 copies per issue. Those goals, ambitious in a community of 700 residents and with few prospective advertisers, were never missed. Generous 'filler' content was often necessary and abundant stacks of leftover copies were common some weeks throughout the next year," Roy told me in an email in 2003.
"The Courier's first-ever color edition came about two years later when Congress authorized legislation establishing the Florissant National Monument. Preservation of the unique fossil beds has been a longtime goal for Teller County and warranted a banner headline in red ink when the act cleared congressional review."
According to Robinson, the page count and pressrun continued to mirror Woodland Park's growth, and eventually the sheet-fed press in Cripple Creek could no longer handle the volume.
"When word came that a Fort Collins publishing firm had a two-unit web printing press for sale, it wasn't long before that press was loaded into a horse trailer and moved to the Gold Rush building in Cripple Creek. The modern web press took its place immediately beside a turn-of-the-century flatbed letter press that had clanked out the Gold Rush until it was retired in 1965 in favor of the Chief 22 offset press," Robinson said.
"It was a revolutionary move for the Courier and the Gold Rush to print and fold eight pages simultaneously. It also represented the introduction of sections for both newspapers."
When Robinsons sold the papers in 1978, production was moved to Littleton, and later, Castle Rock, under corporate ownership.
"Consolidated group ownership of community newspapers will become more widespread in the years ahead," suggested Robinson at the time. "Although regretted by some, group ownership is the only economically viable option to a newspaper ceasing publication, he said.
"The hometown newspaper, regardless of ownership, will remain a cornerstone in a successful community's foundation."

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Top photo: Roy Robinson

Bottom photo: The Cripple Creek Crusher, forerunner to the Cripple Creek Gold Rush that was merged with the Courier in 2007.

The first fifty of the Courier, and more

The Ute Pass Courier announced the winners of the Man of the Year Contest in the Jan. 7. 1965 edition of the paper.
"We were rather dubious about anyone taking it seriously," wrote then publisher Agnes Schupp at the time. "Would any votes reach the Courier office?"
She answered in the next graph.
"Yes, indeed! The Reverend Micheal Kavenagh voted into first place unanimously by a flood of votes. We asked for a 'reason.' Perhaps the best one found lying on the desk one noon;"
"Us kids want Rev. Micheal Kavenagh to be The Man of the Year. We waited in your office but you wasn't here. We got to tell you why. Well — We like father Kavenagh because he is him."
Right behind Kavenagh, is Pete Brown for "going right ahead, not caring if people agree with him or not. He believes is progress and growth of this area and he wants everyone to prosper — not just himself," the paper reasoned.
Not far behind was Bert Bergstrom, of which it was noted "Bert has lent a helping hand whenever and wherever it is needed. Bert never cause much commotion — he is just a good guy."
The paper offer congratulation to these men but identified a possible improvement in the project for coming years. "I still think there should have been a Woman of the Year — and our votes would have been cast for Mrs. Hunter Caroll."
Strangely, this was only Publisher Schupp's first year of year of running the Ute Pass Courier and she was willing to try new things.  In fact, it was within the very first year of existence of the Ute Pass Courier.
That's right, the paper is now in its 50th year. We plan to mark that accordingly.
The first edition of the paper hit the streets on July 23, 1964.
"A morally bankrupt publisher, who was printing the short-lived Woodland Park paper called the Eagle, skipped town with the subscription money from local residents after 10 issues," according to later articles in the Courier.
"Manfred (Monte ) and Agnes (Ag) Schupp saved the paper from scandal and early demise," reported the Courier at the 25th anniversary of the publication. "About one month after he stole out of town, the Schupps put out their inaugural edition of 500 copies. Staff included Tom Bonifield, then owner of Woodland Pharmacy, and M.E. "Pete" Brown, who owned the Browncraft Steakhouse. He was later instrumental in establishing Langstaff-Brown Medical Center."
The paper was first printed in La Junta and was taken there by bus and returned Thursday mornings for distribution.
"The driving force behind the Courier, Agnes (also a mother and free-lance writer) often used her kitchen table as the production room for the paper," the paper reported later. "She suffered from a heart condition which was aggravated by the area's high elevation, and during her failing health she sold half interest to Maureen Jones in the fall of 1965."
Agnes Schupp died of heart attack June 19, 1966, and Manfred and Jones sold full interest to Roy and Carol Lee Robinson Sept. 1, 1966. Publisher, editor and reporter for 12 years, Roy Robinson received many honors and awards from Colorado Press Association for the paper's overall progress. During his tenure, the Courier was published in Cripple Creek along with Cripple Creek Times, then owned by his father, B.G. Robinson.
The paper, later published by notable mainstays of Woodland Park, Gene and Carol Sperry,  and others, (a complete linage will follow in coming editions as we gear up to celebrate over 50 years of serving Teller County and the Ute Pass region). The publication has many locations over the years, finally residing in the building it is in now, since 1984.
The Courier became the Pikes Peak Courier View as the Cripple Creek Gold Rush was merged with it in 2007, and recently View was dropped to reflect its longtime roots. The Gold Rush (with ancestors of the Times, Record, Citizen, and others) traced it roots all the way back to Cripple Creek Crusher, born Dec. 4, 1891, of which this year marks 124 years. To most locally, we have always been the Courier.
Look for details of our first 50 years of history here on the flanks of Pikes Peak, and the businesses, sources, readers, advertisers, and friends who helped make it possible in coming editions.  And  we will offer clues on where we are going for our next 200 years. Yes, indeed!

A pass back through history

Most of the pass is no longer in the county that bears its name

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

At least four different locations in Colorado bear the name Ute Pass but the ancient bison and Indian trail on the North flanks of Pikes Peak (now followed by U.S. Highway 24 from Manitou Springs up though Woodland Park and on to Divide) has wound and weaved its way into the fabric of Colorado history.
That particular Ute Pass, is the real deal.
El Paso County -- alternately the most populous or the second most populous county in the state for the last few decades -- takes its name from there. The county, one of the original 17 territorial counties garnered the Spanish designation El Paso, or “the Pass” in 1861 when Territorial Governor William Gilpin asked the new territorial legislature to extend boundaries across the entire territory. The 1860 federal census put the whole territory’s population at 38,500 at the time.
There is a good chance that the Ute Trail was first used by bison as the animals traveled from the lush, grassy valleys of South Park to milder winters on the eastern plains, notes Celinda Reynolds Kaelin in her 1999 book Pikes Peak Backcountry.
The big, hard-hoofed animals could cut a 15-inch-wide, four-inch-deep, smooth track that even the most directionally-challenged tenderfoot could follow up over the hill.
As early as 1820, white folks had noticed the trail as well.
Major Stephen H. Long, as part of his topographical survey at the time, wrote in his journal:
“A large and much-frequented road passes the springs and enters the mountains, running to the North of the high (Pikes) Peak. It is traveled principally by the bisons, sometimes also by the Indians who penetrate here to the Columbia.”
By the spring of 1860, with Argonauts crawling all over the certain steams in the territory looking for recently-discovered gold, several Kansas fellows were ready to claim the road as there own. Under a charter from the Kansas Territorial Assembly, the group doing business as the Pikes Peak and South Park Wagon Road Co., set up tollgates above Manitou Springs and tried charging wayfarers to continue on up the already well-traveled path. By June of that year, according to dispatches in the Rocky Mountain News, local settlers resisted the company’s efforts and finally forcibly removed the tollgates declaring the path a free road.
“This route, from most indications appears to have been the earliest entry way in this part of the West from the plains to the mountain hinterlands,” observes Paul D. Harrison in a November 1962 paper for the Denver Westerner’s monthly roundup. “It was depended on and used extensively by the white people.”
Harrison observes that, “Two years after the original and unsuccessful attempt of the Pikes Peak and South Park Wagon Road firm to establish a toll project on this route, another effort by local pioneers to organize and operate the Ute Pass Wagon Road Company was sanctioned August 8, 1862, by the Colorado Territorial Assembly. Among the prominent sponsors of this project were A.Z. Sheldon, Wm. H. Young and John E. Tappan. This endeavor did not get far.”
Sheldon was not quite ready to give up however, as he then enlisted the help of Rev. Wm. Howbert and others, and reformed the company 1864, but could not raise enough money. In 1865, with another group of associates, he tried again and got a mile and a quarter stretch of rockwork done before once again running out of money.
Finally, in 1871, as other roads were beginning to be used and threaten the routes dominance, “the entire local community of business men and public officials got behind the wagon road project,” wrote Harrison.
“Ostensibly as a private concern, but actually sponsored by and backed by the El Paso County commissioners, a new Ute Pass Wagon Road Co. was incorporated on April 13, 1871 to complete and operate the enterprise.”
A bond issue for $15,000 to build the road was put before the voters and carried June 20, 1871, by 153 votes to 92.
By 1878, huge freight wagons, pulled by mule teams were hauling supplies and ore back and forth from the diggings in Leadville and Tarryall.
“Great importance was attached to this highway in the pre-railroad phases of the Leadville mining boom.”
Soon the railroads would change the picture entirely. But that is another story.
Interestingly enough, most of the pass is no longer in the county that bears its name. In 1899, as gold from Cripple Creek district gave rise to new influence and political clout, Teller County was carved out of western El Paso County and the tip of Fremont County. Most of the Ute Pass is now in Teller County.

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Hayman Fire and the newspaper

In sky above the ridges surrounding us, air was filled with smoke and an ominous bright pink in color

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

For three intense weeks in June of 2002, the Hayman fire, Colorado’s largest wildland fire in recorded history (at that time), ravaged our circulation area. Hayman burned over 137,000 acres of prime forest in five counties, destroyed at least 132 homes and reduced over 800 other structures to ash piles.
The Ute Pass Courier and The Gold Rush were paid weekly news products servicing the U.S. Highway 24 corridor with circulations of about 4,000 and 1,200 respectively. They were produced in Woodland Park, Colo., and delivered by U.S. Mail on Wednesday. A total market coverage shopper was also put together at the same location and mailed, bulk rate, to every mail box in Teller County. I was the publisher at the time of the fire of these three products and managed operations and about 20 full and part-time employees. We printed at a centralized plant 50 miles away in Castle Rock, Colo.
Highway 24 snakes its way up through Ute Pass and the communities of Manitou Springs, Cascade, Green Mountain Falls, Chipita Park, Woodland Park and then meanders over the ridge at Divide and drops down into Florissant.
Eventually it finds its way to Lake George. The fire started a few miles northwest of Lake George and then traveled, mostly along the South Platte River watershed, torching, scorching and threatening subdivisions and our readers homes and land.
For weekly newspapers such as The Courier and The Gold Rush, covering breaking national spot news on deadline in the same environment with radio, TV and daily newspapers was an awesome challenge. With four full and part-time news employees covering six or seven communities 60 or 70 miles apart, it was tough getting the papers out every week. Now try to beat outfits that send teams (larger than our whole staff, publisher and paper carriers included) out for up-to-the-minute reports.
For members of our staff at the newspaper, the weeks of stress related to intense long-term sustained coverage of a big story was compounded by whether or not their house, or place of employment, or both might burn. And all their friends and neighbors were in a similar predicament.
Tuesday, June 18, tested our collective nerves the most, I believe. Woodland Park rests in a bowl. In the sky above the ridges surrounding us, the air was filled with smoke and was an ominous bright pink in color. City officials with bull horns were driving up and down the streets warning residents that they were on standby evacuation alert.
Reports vary on how close we were to being evacuated that night in Woodland Park. Some officials say 15 minutes was all that separated us from the “trigger points” on evacuation. At the newspaper office, we went as far as pulling our main servers and made plans to put the next week’s papers out in staffers’ homes and/or the printing plant in Castle Rock.
We were a Macintosh-based operation and pulling servers meant backing up everything by burning CDs and grabbing two G3 blue boxes. Theoretically, we could have put PDF pages together on any Mac and e-mailed them to the plant to be imaged through the raster image processor — theoretically. Fortunately we didn’t have to test the theory.
If Highway 24 was closed, we were to drop mail deliveries at the U.S. Postal Service’s Fountain distribution center at the south edge of Colorado Springs and carriers would originate from there instead of two post offices in Woodland Park and one in Cripple Creek.
Tuesday night, the fire burned up to the Manitou Experimental Forest about seven miles from town and then fell down and went to sleep. Our offices and other businesses and residences in Woodland Park were removed from standby evacuation warnings two days later.
Our fire coverage ran through much of the main news sections in the coming weeks but we also tried to dedicate four broadsheet pages in the center of the paper as an information guide for relief efforts.
As that was updated, and as needs changed, the pages became more of a forum for people in the community to give their take on what was happening.
In addition to our own staff coverage, we felt it was important to offer our readers a mix of submitted material as well. Some of the voices brought forward in our pages included a diary of the first weeks of the fire as seen through eyes of local volunteer firefighter, exceptional photos from those documenting the loss of their homes, and excellent accounts of animal rescue efforts from those involved.
For three weeks during the height of the coverage, we overran our primary product, The Ute Pass Courier, by about 500 papers. About half of the overrun was distributed free at Red Cross and Salvation Army shelters in Woodland Park, Divide and Lake George. The rest of the additional papers sold on the newsstands and to locals who continued to wander into our office for months after the fire, saying they missed the paper during the conflagration.
For years afterward, we continued covering the fire in various aspects. The effects on the tourist-reliant business community, the government responses, the cleanup, the flooding, and all the evaluation and Monday morning quarterbacking were continuous elements of our weekly products. Personally, I know I will always remember how ragged we felt, even months after the intense initial three weeks of baptism by fire. Today, talking with survivors of Hayman and hearing about their experiences still brings back images in my mind of that weird pink, smoky glow on ridges above Woodland Park.
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