Welcome back to the deep dive. Today, we're going
to do something that might seem a little counterintuitive.
We're going to look at a stack of old papers.
Right. And I don't mean, you know, secret government
documents. I mean, a newspaper, specifically
the Arizona Minor. Oh, boy. I could just feel
the listeners eyes glazing over already. The
Arizona Minor. It sounds like a newsletter you'd
find in a dentist's office in like 1950. Exactly.
It sounds like some dusty old business ledger.
You expect to open it up and see, I don't know,
the price of copper, a list of cattle brands
and a weather report that just says hot. Right.
But once I actually started digging into the
source material you sent over. Right. Wow. This
is not a story about accounting. Not even close.
This story about, well, it's about journalism,
sure. But it's journalism with a rifle strapped
to your back. It's about printing the news while
your office. is literally a military target.
It really reframes the whole idea of freedom
of the press, doesn't it? Yeah. We think of that
legally, you know, publishing without censorship.
But in the Arizona territory in the 1860s, the
challenge wasn't legal. It was physical. The
infrastructure wasn't servers and fiber optics.
It was a wagon, a mule, and a whole lot of gunpowder.
So that is the mission for this deep dive. We're
going to track the life of this newspaper, the
oldest one in Arizona, founded way back in 1864.
We're going to follow it from its birth in a
military fort all the way to its death during
the Great Depression. And we're using it as a
lens because if you want to understand how the
American West was actually settled, not the movie
version, but the gritty logistical reality. Yeah.
You have to look at how they moved information.
And honestly, reading about the working conditions
these reporters dealt with, it makes my complaints
about slow office Wi -Fi feel pretty embarrassing.
It definitely puts the modern media landscape
into a very, very sharp perspective. So let's
rewind. We are dropping into 1864. So the Civil
War is still raging back east. Arizona has just
been carved out as a territory. It's wild. It's
dangerous. And it's politically chaotic. And
into this mess walks a guy named... Richard C.
McCormick. Richard C. McCormick. He was the territorial
secretary. Yeah. So essentially one of the guys
in charge of setting up the new government. And
he decides that this territory needs a voice.
It needs a newspaper. But here's the problem.
You are in the middle of nowhere. You can't just
order a printing press on Amazon. Far from it.
No. McCormick has to. physically go get the means
of production. He travels to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
He buys a press. And this is probably a heavy
cast iron Washington hand press. I mean, we're
talking hundreds of pounds of dead weight. And
he has to haul it all the way to Arizona. Right.
And the source material paints this incredible
picture. He loads this heavy industrial machine
into... government wagons. And it's sitting right
there alongside his personal belongings. His
personal belongings. His chairs, his clothes,
his desk. I love that image. It's the ultimate
road trip from hell. You're hauling a printing
press across the desert over these non -existent
roads. If a wheel breaks, the government, you
know, loses its voice. Exactly. And this gets
to a crucial point about why he was doing it.
McCormick didn't start the paper just to report
the weather. Historians call the paper the creature
of the new territorial government. So it was
a tool. It was about legitimacy. If you have
a newspaper, you have a government, you have
civilization. It proves to the world and to D
.C. that this territory is organized. So they
haul this thing all the way, but they don't set
up in a nice downtown office. No. The first issue,
which hits the streets on March 9th, 1864, isn't
published in a town. It's published at Fort Whipple.
A military fort. A military fort. And that is
not a coincidence. This wasn't a commercial enterprise.
It was published under explicit military protection.
The sources you sent had a quote that just, it
stuck with me. It said the staff worked with
rifles strapped to their backs. It's a vivid
detail, isn't it? It's cinematic. I mean, imagine
the scene, you're a typesetter, you're standing
there picking out these tiny little lead letters,
A -R -I, and the whole time you have a loaded
weapon on your body because you were literally
working in a conflict zone. It's a fascinating
tension. You're doing this very intellectual,
civilized act writing. editing, while being prepared
for immediate violence. Wow. The press was the
only thing connecting them to the world, but
the environment was actively hostile. It's civilization
as an act of defiance. We are going to print
this paper, even if we have to shoot our way
out of the office. Precisely. Now, they didn't
stay at the fort for long. The government moved
the capital to Prescott. Right. After just six
issues, the paper follows. The whole... Circus
wagons, press -type cases, moves to Prescott,
the new capital. So they're in a town now. You'd
think, okay, maybe things can relax a little
bit, maybe take their rifles off. You would hope
so. But the move didn't mean safety. In fact,
this brings us to one of the most tragic figures
in the paper's history, a young man named Emmett
A. Bentley. This part of the timeline really
shook me. Because we talk about risk in business,
but this is just a different universe of risk.
Bentley became the editor in July 1866. He was
young, born in Iowa, came out west in 63. By
the time he's running the paper, he's in his
mid -20s. He's the voice of the town. So a young
guy, ambitious, running the biggest media outlet
in the territory. And then, February 1867, he
goes out to Weaver Mountain. And this is where
the reality of the era just crashes right into
the story. This was the height of the Apache
Wars. Bentley was attacked on the mountain. He
was shot. But he didn't die there. No. And this
is the detail that is so haunting. He was wounded,
probably gravely. He was brought back to Prescott.
He survived for a few days. And the historical
records state he died inside the newspaper's
office. He was only 27 years old. Dying in the
newsroom. It's just a stark reminder. We often
think of journalists as observers, you know,
the person on the sidelines taking notes. The
impartial observer, right? Exactly. But in the
Arizona territory, the journalists weren't observers.
They were participants. They were living and
dying right alongside the miners and soldiers
they were writing about. It just changes how
you read the headlines from that era. The person
writing the copy was literally bleeding for the
paper. It does. And it explains why the tone
of the journalism was so different. The minor
wasn't objective. It couldn't be. It was fighting
for its own survival. Which brings us to the
next big phase. If the physical danger wasn't
enough, the political danger starts to ramp up.
Right. So the paper changes hands in 1867. McCormick,
the government founder, sells it to a man named
John H. Marion. And this is a huge pivot point.
If McCormick was the establishment, Marion was
something else. Something else is a polite way
to put it. Marion was a firebrand. Okay, let's
untack Marion, because his bio in the notes,
he sounds like a character out of a movie. He
was from New Orleans. He came west to prospect
for gold and silver, which is why the name Minor
fit him so well. But he realized the real power
wasn't in the ground. It was in the printing
press. Now, under McCormick, the paper had been
pretty tame, right? Standard government announcements.
Relatively, yeah. It leaned Republican because
it was an organ of the federally appointed government.
It covered the legislature, Lincoln's reelection.
Yeah. It was trying to be respectable. Although,
to be fair, McCormick did have his critics. Chief
Justice William F. Turner accused him of using
the paper for personal gain. Of course, corruption
in the media, not a new complaint. Not at all.
But then Marion takes over and he just cranks
the volume up to 11. Marion was a Democrat and
he was combative. He saw the paper as a political
weapon. And we have to talk about the actual
language he used because it's important we share
this, not to endorse it, obviously, but just
to understand the mindset of 1867 Arizona. We
have to look at the historical record impartially.
Marion branded the minor with two slogans. The
first was the official paper of Arizona Standard
Suffrage. Okay. But the second one was the Organ
of the White People of Arizona. Wow. He just,
he put it right on the masthead. He did. And
that tells you everything you need to know about
the political and racial climate of the frontier.
It was intensely polarized. He wasn't trying
to be inclusive. He was explicitly catering to
a specific demographic. The sources describe
his writing as racist and aggressive. He was
relentless. He used the paper to launch just
biting attacks on his enemies. Now, in modern
business, you'd think alienating a huge chunk
of people is a bad strategy. But what happened
to the miners' business under Marion? It boomed.
Of course it did. Controversy sells. Anger engages.
It's a lesson the media learned very early on.
Marion claims that he grew circulation from less
than 75 readers to 672. That's almost a 10 times
increase. It is. And the advertising grew significantly
from half a column to several columns of paid
ads. So he basically invented the rage bait engagement
model in 1867. You could absolutely say that.
He proved that a strong, polarizing voice was
often more commercially viable. than a dry, government
-approved one. He turned the miner into a real
business. But of course, nothing lasts forever.
The pendulum eventually swings back. Always does.
In 1877, Marion sold the paper to a man named
Charles W. Beach. And just like that, the editorial
stance flipped right back to its Republican roots.
It's amazing how fast the truth changes depending
on who's signing the checks. It's like watching
a cable news channel change ownership today.
Suddenly the narrative just flips 180 degrees.
It's not a new phenomenon. The media landscape
has always been subject to the whims of ownership.
Speaking of whims, we need to talk about the
branding. Because if I was a subscriber to this
paper, I think I would have had a migraine trying
to figure out what it was even called. The branding
strategy was... Fluid. Fluid is very generous.
I was looking at the list of name changes. It's
like they were having an identity crisis every
six months. It certainly looks that way from
the outside. Okay, walk me through this. It starts
as the Republican Fort Whipple, Arizona Minor.
Right, that was the monthly version at the Fort.
Very descriptive. Then it becomes just the Arizona
Minor. Then suddenly it's the Weekly Arizona
Minor. That was in 1868. But then they just swapped
the words. It becomes the Arizona Weekly Minor.
Which, to a librarian, is a totally different
publication. And then, just to be fancy, they
add a the, the weekly Arizona minor. Very dignified.
And eventually becomes the Arizona weekly journal
minor. Was this just indecision? Was there no
marketing department saying, hey guys, let's
maybe pick a lane? It seems comical, but there
was usually a business logic behind it. For example,
the switch to weekly. When a guy named Benjamin
H. Weaver joined, they suddenly had the resources,
the manpower. To publish weekly instead of semi
-monthly. Okay. So that's a huge change in workflow.
It is. You have to produce twice as much content.
Yeah. So changing the name to weekly wasn't just
a tweak. It was a flex. It was bragging to advertisers.
Look how capable we are now. So the name change
was a signal of growth. Exactly. And we should
forget there was actually a daily edition for
a while too. An Arizona Daily Minor. Yep. From
about 1873 to 1885. Wow. Imagine printing a daily
paper handsetting the type in a mining town in
the 1870s. The pressure must have been immense.
It was a bustling operation. But that constant
change in names also signaled instability. Mergers,
new partners, new owners. Every time the money
changed, the name on the door changed. So, we've
survived attacks, we've survived political mudslinging,
and we've survived a branding crisis. But we
haven't talked about the one thing that seems
to happen to every wooden building in the Old
West. Fire. The great leveler. It's almost inevitable
in these histories. On July 14th, 1900, disaster
struck. The publishing office was completely
destroyed. And we need to clarify what destroyed
means in 1900. There's no cloud backup, no Google
Drive. No. If the office burns, the history burns.
The archives, the back issues, the lists. And
the physical capital. The presses, the type cases,
all of it melted or turned to ash. It's a total
loss. For most businesses, that is the end. But
they didn't fold. No. And this speaks to the
sheer resilience of the organization. They scrambled.
They published a temporary daily edition for
about a month, probably on a borrowed press,
just to keep the news flowing. That is dedication.
Our building is ash, but here's the news. And
then they moved into a small brick building on
West Gurley Street. Brick being the key word
there. We're not doing the wood thing again.
Exactly. And this period, post -fire, really
marked the transition into the modern era. We
leave the frontier phase and enter the industrial
phase. What was the big leap? Technology. In
1904, they get the Linotype machine. Okay, for
those of us who aren't print nerds, explain why
the Linotype is such a huge deal. So before this,
every single letter, every E, every comma, had
to be picked by hand from a box and lined up.
It was incredibly slow. Painstaking. The Linotype
changed everything. It was a machine with a keyboard.
You type a line of text and the machine melts
lead and casts a solid line of type right there.
So it's the difference between handwriting a
letter and typing an email. It's a massive leap
in efficiency. It'll let them print more pages
faster with fewer people. And around then, they
also became a franchise of the Associated Press.
That's a huge shift in content. Now they're not
just relying on rumors from wagons. They're plugged
into the national wire. They're part of the global
network, getting news from New York, London,
Washington almost instantly. Bye -bye 1914. By
1914, they've moved into a two -story building
with a Goss web -perfecting press. Web -perfecting?
Sounds fancy. What's that? It's the grandfather
of the modern newspaper press. Instead of feeding
single sheets of paper by hand, a web press takes
a giant roll of paper, feeds it through continuously,
and prints on both sides at once. So we are talking
about speed. Serious industrial speed. We are
a long, long way from Richard McCormick hauling
a hand press across the desert. We are now in
the age of mass media. It's a complete evolution
from a fort to a factory. Basically, yes. But
all things come to an end. Sadly, yes. The minor
or the journal minor, as it was known by then,
finally reached the end of the line. April 1934.
Now, the source notes don't explicitly say the
Great Depression killed the paper, but the date
is 1934. It's hard to ignore the context. 1934
was the absolute depth of the Depression. Advertising
revenue had plummeted. Mines were closing. People
just didn't have money for subscriptions. It's
very likely the economy finally caught up with
them. So after 70 years, the press has stopped.
It's quite a run, though. Think about the arc.
It started before the Civil War ended. born in
a wagon, protected by soldiers. It survived the
Apache Wars. It saw the territory become a state.
It fueled political fires. It burned down and
rose from the ashes. And it eventually hooked
up to the Global Information Network. It really
is the story of Arizona in a nutshell. It is.
It's the story of how a rough, violent frontier
transformed into a structured, modern society.
And the newspaper was the diary of that entire
life. You know, it makes me think we live in
this age where news is instant. My phone buzzes
and I know what happened five seconds ago on
the other side of the world. And honestly, I
swipe it away half the time. I take it for granted.
We all do. It's low cost information. It's everywhere.
Exactly. But when you look at the Arizona minor,
the cost of that information was incredibly high.
People risked their lives, literally died to
get those words on a page. It raises a fascinating
question about value. Does the ease of access
devalue the information? When Emmett Bentley
died to get the paper out, that paper meant something
profound to the community. It was a lifeline.
That is the thought I want to leave you with
today. Next time you get a news alert and you're
annoyed by the distraction, just take a second.
Imagine the guy with the rifle strapped to his
back or the editor dying in his office just so
the community could know what was going on. Would
we value our news differently if we remembered
the price that used to be paid for it? It's certainly
something to think about. Thanks for diving in
with us. We'll see you next time.