Establishing a newspaper in a frontier Kansas town was not for the faint of heart. Newspapers, as well as newspaper men, came to town with all the bluster and brilliance of the dawn, often to depart the scene without so much as a whimper.

The lively frontier railroad atmosphere of Ellsworth certainly would have been attractive to the newspaper business. The town had been the end-of-track for several months in 1867, and even as tracklayers moved west, Ellsworth was filled with frontier adventure. Editor E. F. Campbell was drawn from Council Grove to the lusty streets of Ellsworth in early December to publish the Ellsworth Tri-Weekly Advertiser.

Campbell’s first observations confirmed the extraordinary character of the fledgling town that had become a legend in only a few months of existence.

On a windy, disagreeable day Campbell wondered if he would find men with pluck enough to get his press from the dusty street, up an imposing set of stairs, to its new home looking out over the town.

The pluck was provided by Capt. Seiber and Wild Bill (Hickok), who “proved pluck doesn’t go begging here. These two gentlemen doffed their good clothes; rolled up their sleeves and gathered hold of our Wells Power Press as if it were but a toy.”

Editor Campbell offered up a snapshot of frontier Ellsworth that we might not have imagined without the descriptive observation printed in that first issue. “It would do some of our Eastern friends good to wander along Main street, and see the market-show of Ellsworth. The long rows of deer, elk, beef, turkeys, quails, etc., would make the Eastern epicurean draw a long breath, and wish for meal-time to come. Come along, if you want to get fat.”

However, the Advertiser’s editor could hardly get fat selling his newspaper. He noted in an early issue that, “When whisky was five cents a drink, newspapers sold at five cents a number; but now, while liquor is 25 cents a drink, newspapers are worth 25 cents a-piece. If our paper is not worth a drink of whisky, it is not worth anything.”

Apparently, the denizens of Ellsworth preferred whisky. By early January, 1868, Campbell sold his interest in the Advertiser. Mr. Ben R. Wilson, recently of the Leavenworth Herald, took the helm at Ellsworth.

Editor Wilson wrote, “This western country beats the world.”

Alas, after just a few months the Ellsworth Tri-Weekly Advertiser was discontinued.

It would be nearly nine months before another newspaper editor, P. H. Hubbell, would try his luck “slinging ink” in Ellsworth. The first issue of the Ellsworth Advocate was published in early March, 1868. Copies of the Advocate or its predecessor the Advertiser have not survived. We only know of the papers through items that other papers reprinted for their readers.

The March 19, 1868, edition of the White Cloud Chief recognized the new paper but sounded skeptical.

“The editor of the Ellsworth Advocate, who has just emigrated from grasshopper Falls, says his experience has taught him that the object in publishing newspapers is to make money. Has his experience taught him that much money is made in that way?”

The Advocate was published during wild and woolly days. Had complete issues survived, our knowledge of those days would have been advanced a hundred-fold.

Other papers are our only source of articles published by Advocate editor P. H. Hubbell, such as his campaign to establish a church on the edge of the frontier.

The March 22, 1868, edition of the Junction City Weekly Union related that: The Ellsworth Advocate says: The sound of the church-going bell has never been heard in the valley of the Smoky Hill river. Is it not about time that those who have been accustomed to hear the soul-inspiring sound, to come together and take measures to erect a temple in which all can join in thanksgiving and praise to the giver of all good?”

The week the March 28, 1868, the Marysville Enterprise noted, “The ‘Ellsworth Advocate’ complains of the uncivilized condition of that community, and says they must have a bell. From all reports they are pretty well supplied with one sort of bell already — Belzebub.”

By April 29, the Weekly Union conveyed an Advocate report that Episcopalian Rev. Griffith was holding a church service every 3rd Sunday in the “Court room:’ Alas, references to the Advocate disappeared from Kansas newspapers by early September. The skepticism of the White Cloud Chief that “much money” could be made by publishing newspapers proved regrettably appropriate.

For the next three years Ellsworth did without a paper. When the Ellsworth Reporter was established in December of 1871, the paper boasted a subscription list of 500 subscribers at $2 per year, “paid in advance.”

The Reporter owed its success to editor M. C. Davis and the exceptional genius of John Montgomery, a man with ink in his veins. Today, the IndependentReporter, heir to those plucky entrepreneurs, continues a long newspaper tradition on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.