MDN at 130: 1889 newspaper merger creates Democrat-News

It was in 1889 that The Saline County Democrat and The Marshall Daily News joined forces to become The Daily Democrat-News, beginning the current history of the longest-running newspaper in Marshall.

Notable births in that year included Adolph Hitler, Charlie Chaplin, Edwin Hubble, Robert Taft, Jean Cocteau and historian Arnold Toynbee, who once said of the United States, "America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair."

Deaths included Belle Starr, the notorious female gunslinger, who spied for the Confederacy and was murdered, perhaps by her son, at age 40; Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America; and poet Robert Browning, whose wife, Elizabeth Barrett, wrote a collection of sonnets before their marriage and at first wanted to name them "Sonnets from the Bosnian," to disguise their origin.

The first U.S. golf course opened, in Younkers, N.Y., and in Paris, as the main entrance arch to the World's Fair, the Eiffel Tower saw its first visitors.

Another long-lived newspaper was born that year, too -- The Wall Street Journal began publication July 8.

Nelly Bly, a reporter for The New York World, set off on a journey around the world, modeling her trip on Jules Verne's story "Around the World in 80 Days," hoping to make it in 80 days, but getting it done in just 72. Bly's real name was Elizabeth Jane Cochran; she was called "Pink" as a child, after her habit of wearing her favorite color.

The Oklahoma land rush took off on April 22, near the town of Guthrie. Oklahoma wasn't even a state yet. Some among the 50,000 participants said they'd been cheated out of their rightful claims by wagonloads of people who'd begun the race for land "sooner" than they should have. North and South Dakota, Montana and Washington were admitted to the Union that year, but Oklahoma had to wait until 1912 to achieve statehood.

On the last day of May, Pennsylvania's Johnstown Flood took the lives of 2,029 people, in a "perfect storm" of neglect of the South Fork Dam at Lake Conemaugh and a downpour of annual spring rains. Its efforts to help the survivors, and the resulting national publicity, established the American Red Cross as the nation's primary disaster relief agency.

In Marshall, Missouri Valley College opened on Sept. 17, with an eventual enrollment for its first year of 154 students, including nine preachers. Bids for its location were received from Sedalia, Odessa and Marshall. The name selected for the school was praised as "a name euphonious and significant." The college today remains a private, four-year institution affiliated with the Presbyterian Church.

The population of the U.S. had grown in 1890, an increase of 24.7 percent, to 62,622,250. Missouri's counties and towns grew, too, enough to send an additional representative to the U.S. Congress.

Saline County boasted 33,762 citizens at the 1890 census and the town of Marshall more than doubled from 1880 to 1890, to 4,297 residents.

Unfortunately, although The Democrat-News was published under that name beginning with the 1889 merger, no microfilm is available of those earlier years. We will have to rely on "The Saline County Weekly Progress" to tell us what was going on in Marshall then.

The edition of January 12, 1889, advertised "A Great Offer!" The front page ad advises that the publisher of the newspaper "takes pleasure in announcing that he has made arrangements by which he can offer (the Saline County paper) and The Kansas City Evening News together for one year for three dollars," about half the regular price of the two papers.

"The Evening News is published every day in the year," says the ad, "and is one of the brightest papers in the Great Southwest. It is bright crisp and entertaining."

Also advertised on the front page is the 19th century version of a grocery store called Latimer and Bell, successors to Armentrout & Naylor, the ad notes, sellers of "Staple Fancy Groceries, Glassware, Queensware, woodenware &c, in fact everything kept in a first-class grocery." The store was located on "South Side Square."

Then, as now, the local newspaper was reporting on county roads, and, inevitably, taxes.

"It has been said that Missouri has the worst road law in existence, and the charge has never been refuted. It is easy to account for bad roads in Missouri. The county courts are not able to furnish sufficient money to improve the condition of the public highways. It requires all the money a court can levy to keep the roads from getting worse. There is only one way to remedy this defect and that is through an amendment to the constitution which will permit county courts to increase the tax levy for road purposes. It is useless to try to make $20 accomplish results which cost $100."

Maybe they could have looked to local banks for funding. Wood & Huston Bank, where Will H. Wood was president, J.P. Huston was cashier and J.W. Nordyke was secretary, reported capital of $100,000 and a surplus of $60,000.

At Farmers' Savings Bank, capital was $50,000 with a $40,000 surplus, and at Bank of Saline, capital was $100,000, with a surplus of $30,000.

The 1890's brought change to Marshall, including the installation of electric lighting in February 1893, by a company formed by Thomas E. Marshall, Harry M. Robey and William E. Cully.

The first plat book was published in 1896, the same year that William Jennings Bryan appeared at the Marshall Opera House to speak on the topic of "The Four Immortals -- Jefferson, Jackson, Clay and Lincoln." His appearance in Marshall was part of the first of Bryan's four runs for president.

Competition was thriving in the local news business during this period. Newspapers popped up with great frequency in Saline County throughout the 1890s, including The Blackburn Record, The Gilliam Bee, The Nelson Timecard, The Marshall Baptist, The Marshall Capital, The Nelson Courier, The Marshall Presbyterian, The Slater Call, and The Arrow Rock Enterprise, to name only a few.

Contact Kathy Fairchild at marshallhealth@socket.net

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