August 2008 Colorado Editor
Denver Public Library/Western History & Genealogy
Front pages from the July 5 Denver Post and July 9 Rocky Mountain
News display coverage of the 1908 Democratic National Convention
at the Denver Auditorium in downtown Denver. The 2008
DNC will be Aug. 25-28 at Pepsi Center in Denver.
DNC was
major media
event in 1908 by John Steinle
A Golden Age of print journalism reigned as 30,000
Democrats gathered in Denver for their 1908 National Convention.
Denver— a city of about 213,000 — supported five
major daily newspapers, plus dozens of ethnic, neighborhood,
religious and literary periodicals.
The rivalry among the Denver newspapers was intense.
Just the year before the Democratic Convention, Denver
Post co-owner Fred Bonfils viciously assaulted elderly
Rocky Mountain News and Denver Times owner Tom Patterson
in broad daylight.
Bonfils and his co-owner Harry Tammen were shot by
an irate attorney in 1900 during a dispute over the prison
parole of “Colorado Cannibal” Alfred Packer.
Denver journalism in the early 1900s was no job for the faint of heart! See 1908 on page 6.
Coming soon ... September Editor
