| Description |
THE UTAH NEWSPAPER HALL OF FAME it became obvious he'd never resume work, Jensen urged Warner to buy the Press and on March 1, 1910, having raised the needed $2,600, he became its owner-publisher. Announced Jensen, "With this issue the Press passes from my hands into the hands ofElisha Warner. He is a Spanish Fork native son." To which Warner appended: "In the future the policy of this paper will be the same as in the past. We do not want to mix up in any quarrels, either personal or otherwise. We shall try to give all the news of the locality and would like the assistance and goodwill of the people, hoping that all the friends of the retiring editor will remain our friends." Jensen, who had launched the paper January 23, 1902, once told Warner he'd arrived in the community with "four dollars in my pocket and a wife and four children to support." He gave Spanish Fork its first publication to survive more than a year -- and undoubtedly its best journalistic effort to that time. Historian J. Cecil Alter, in his book, "Early Utah Journalism, comments: "Considering the previous newspaper wrecks in Spanish Fork, the Press marks the new era in newspaper journalism. " Such had not been the case with previous newspapers in the community. The first, the Rocky Mountain Star, was remembered as "very rocky indeed." It failed to reach its first birthday. The Index, launched in 1891, died later that year of what neighboring journalists termed "malnutrition of the exchequer." It was revived on March 25, 1892 -- and very shortly had a competitor, the Sun, co-founded by two members of the Provo Dispatch staff, Andrew Jensen and W. H. Kenner. The Index died for a second time later that year, to be remembered by its competitors ~ and therefore perhaps unfairly -- as "A disgrace, especially to the newspaper fraternity surrounding us." Jensen followed Kenner in selling his share of the Sun in September to return to Provo and their successor, Milton L. Scott, suspended the paper on May 6, 1893. In 1895 the Herald arrived -- and soon departed. Thus it was not until early in 1902, when Andrew Jensen returned to unveil the Press, that 645 |
