There was a time when news was folded into sheets of paper and thrown onto millions of doorsteps throughout the country. It was a time when journalists were heralded as community leaders and with the same respect as doctors and lawyers. It was a time when the titans of industry and the lowly newspaper boy learned about international events from the same printed columns of the newspaper. Among the prominent social meeting places in most cities, the press club was revered where people enjoyed dignified social-and-political discourse, face-to-face camaraderie, while maintaining the highest respect for the First Amendment. This is Denvers story of 150 years of printers devils who served as the jack of all trades in print shops, the Bohemian lifestyle of the reporters who gathered the news, the ghosts of Americas printed newspapers, and a few poker-playing spirits inside the Denver Press Club.
It was on September 26, 1881, when settlers went to the junction of the Gunnison and Grand (the Colorado) Rivers to claim 640 acres, and in the semiarid confluence of the two rivers, a city developed and a college grew out of the seeds of a single-room school with a dirt floor. Original.
Author Kania dedicates his book to the eccentrics of the world. May they never give up their dream. John Otto did not give up. Though he died in poverty in California in an abandoned post office building that he had painted red, white and blue, his spirit lives on at Colorado National Monument, along Rimrock Drive, and along the many trails which provide the solitude he sought. [Reviewed by Andrew Gulliford who teaches environmental history and directs the Public History and Historic Preservation Program at Middle Tennessee State University. During the spring of 1997, he was the Wayne N. Aspinal Visiting Chair of History at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colo. Dr. Thomas Noel, Doctor Colorado: This is the strangest tale since Alferd Packer, the man eater. After his 1903 release from a California insane asylum, John Otto came to Colorado, apparently to straighten out Gov. James H. Peabody. Peabody was in the process of exterminating the Western Federation of Miners, a union on strike because Colorado employers were failing to observe the eight-hour-a-day law. Otto was arrested and charged with attempting to assault the governor with the well-sharpened tip of his miners candle stick. After an insanity trail, this rover from Missouri was released as a harmless crank. Otto then settled in Fruita, Colo., where a few years later he forbade Gov. henry A. Buchtel to make an appearance, threatening to get some dynamite and have a big blowout. After another arrest, insanity trial and release, Otto lived as a hermit in Monument Canyon, a spectacular set of red sandstone formations on the outskirts of Grand Junction. He supported himself with odd jobs on nearby ranches but devoted most of his time to exploring the pinyon-clad canyons and clifftops, building serpentine foot trails and erecting American flags. After re-emerging in the local press as an eccentric, flag-waving booster, Otto began a one-man crusade to make Monument Canyon a national park. After attracting local support, Otto proudly attended the creation of Colorado National Monument on May 24, 1911. The National Park Service appointed Otto custodian of Colorados first national monument at a salary of $1 a month. In 1927, local Chamber of Commerce boosters and the National Park Service eased Otto out of his job. The 48-year-old father of Colorado National Monument headed for California to resume his life as a hermit. After living for years in a cave and old shacks, he moved into a vacant post office. There he lived on corn flakes until his death in 1952. This book resurrects a crank whom, one suspects, Grand Junctionites and the National Park Service would prefer to forget. Author Kania refrains from judging Ottos sanity or his accomplishments. Readers are left to decide for themselves. Although apparently demented, Otto spoke up for the rights of labor, women and non-conformists. He championed progressive causes, but other reformers apparently felt uncomfortable with someone operating so close to the edge of sanity and society. Tom Noel reviewed John Otto of Colorado National Monument, by Alan J. Kania. Dr. Noel teaches Colorado History at the University of Colorado at Denver. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alan J. Kania has been a journalist for over 40 years, writing extensively for newspapers and magazines. He also serves his third term as a member of the board of directors of the Denver Press club, the oldest organization of its kind in the United States. He also serves on the founding board of directors of the American chapter of the International Communications Forum, a London-based mass communications organization. He is co-director and American representative of the Southern Africa Media Alliance. He also has taught journalism disciplines at Denver University and at Metropolitan State College in Denver. He is the author of John Otto of Colorado Nat
Author Kania dedicates his book to the eccentrics of the world. May they never give up their dream. John Otto did not give up. Though he died in poverty in California in an abandoned post office building that he had painted red, white and blue, his spirit lives on at Colorado National Monument, along Rimrock Drive, and along the many trails which provide the solitude he sought. [Reviewed by Andrew Gulliford who teaches environmental history and directs the Public History and Historic Preservation Program at Middle Tennessee State University. During the spring of 1997, he was the Wayne N. Aspinal Visiting Chair of History at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colo. Dr. Thomas Noel, Doctor Colorado: This is the strangest tale since Alferd Packer, the man eater. After his 1903 release from a California insane asylum, John Otto came to Colorado, apparently to straighten out Gov. James H. Peabody. Peabody was in the process of exterminating the Western Federation of Miners, a union on strike because Colorado employers were failing to observe the eight-hour-a-day law. Otto was arrested and charged with attempting to assault the governor with the well-sharpened tip of his miners candle stick. After an insanity trail, this rover from Missouri was released as a harmless crank. Otto then settled in Fruita, Colo., where a few years later he forbade Gov. henry A. Buchtel to make an appearance, threatening to get some dynamite and have a big blowout. After another arrest, insanity trial and release, Otto lived as a hermit in Monument Canyon, a spectacular set of red sandstone formations on the outskirts of Grand Junction. He supported himself with odd jobs on nearby ranches but devoted most of his time to exploring the pinyon-clad canyons and clifftops, building serpentine foot trails and erecting American flags. After re-emerging in the local press as an eccentric, flag-waving booster, Otto began a one-man crusade to make Monument Canyon a national park. After attracting local support, Otto proudly attended the creation of Colorado National Monument on May 24, 1911. The National Park Service appointed Otto custodian of Colorados first national monument at a salary of $1 a month. In 1927, local Chamber of Commerce boosters and the National Park Service eased Otto out of his job. The 48-year-old father of Colorado National Monument headed for California to resume his life as a hermit. After living for years in a cave and old shacks, he moved into a vacant post office. There he lived on corn flakes until his death in 1952. This book resurrects a crank whom, one suspects, Grand Junctionites and the National Park Service would prefer to forget. Author Kania refrains from judging Ottos sanity or his accomplishments. Readers are left to decide for themselves. Although apparently demented, Otto spoke up for the rights of labor, women and non-conformists. He championed progressive causes, but other reformers apparently felt uncomfortable with someone operating so close to the edge of sanity and society. Tom Noel reviewed John Otto of Colorado National Monument, by Alan J. Kania. Dr. Noel teaches Colorado History at the University of Colorado at Denver. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alan J. Kania has been a journalist for over 40 years, writing extensively for newspapers and magazines. He also serves his third term as a member of the board of directors of the Denver Press club, the oldest organization of its kind in the United States. He also serves on the founding board of directors of the American chapter of the International Communications Forum, a London-based mass communications organization. He is co-director and American representative of the Southern Africa Media Alliance. He also has taught journalism disciplines at Denver University and at Metropolitan State College in Denver. He is the author of John Otto of Colorado Nat
There was a time when news was folded into sheets of paper and thrown onto millions of doorsteps throughout the country. It was a time when journalists were heralded as community leaders and with the same respect as doctors and lawyers. It was a time when the titans of industry and the lowly newspaper boy learned about international events from the same printed columns of the newspaper. Among the prominent social meeting places in most cities, the press club was revered where people enjoyed dignified social-and-political discourse, face-to-face camaraderie, while maintaining the highest respect for the First Amendment. This is Denvers story of 150 years of printers devils who served as the jack of all trades in print shops, the Bohemian lifestyle of the reporters who gathered the news, the ghosts of Americas printed newspapers, and a few poker-playing spirits inside the Denver Press Club.
Amid the rock spires and red-rock canyons west of Grand Junction near the Utah state line, a young man with a checkered past single-handedly built trails at a salary of $1 a month. John Otto brought the beauty of the canyons to the attention of the local chambers of commerce and eventually the National Park Service. With the stroke of a pen, Pres. William Taft added the Colorado National Monument to the park system in 1911. Ottos eccentricities toward bureaucrats and businessmen caused him to abandon a quarter-century of trail building in the mid-1930s. His legacy was then picked up by hundreds of young men from the Civilian Conservation Corps prior to World War II. Today their combined efforts bring thousands of hikers, bicyclists, and motorists to the same trails Otto first used to introduce people to the canyon lands a century ago and the odd rock monoliths that seem to rise hundreds of feet out of the canyon floor. Scenic vistas of the Little Bookcliffs mountain range and the great Grand Mesa complete the beautiful panorama.
It was on September 26, 1881, when settlers went to the junction of the Gunnison and Grand (the Colorado) Rivers to claim 640 acres, and in the semiarid confluence of the two rivers, a city developed and a college grew out of the seeds of a single-room school with a dirt floor. Original.
In 1950 Velma Johnston, a shy Nevada ranch wife, came upon a horse trailer leaking blood. When she discovered the destination of the trailer and its occupants—a trio of terrified and badly injured wild horses—she launched a crusade that eventually reached the halls of Congress and changed the way westerners regard and treat the bands of mustangs and burros that roam their region. Wild horses have been a subject of bitter controversy in the West for decades. To some, they are symbols of the West’s wild, free heritage. To others, they are rapacious grazers that destroy habitat and compete with domestic livestock and indigenous wildlife for scanty food and water. For years, free-ranging horses and burros were rounded up and shipped to slaughterhouses to be killed and turned into pet food. This practice provided an income for the “mustangers” who trapped and sold them, but it also involved horrendous cruelty and abuse of the animals. Velma Johnston, who became known as “Wild Horse Annie,” undertook to stop the removal of wild horses and burros from US public lands and protect them from the worst aspects of mustanging. Her campaign attracted nationwide attention, as it led her from her rural Nevada County to state offices and finally to Washington, DC. Author Alan J. Kania worked closely with Johnston for seven years, and his biography provides unique insight into Wild Horse Annie’s life and her efforts to save the West’s wild horse herds through the passage of protective legislation.
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