This seems like an appropriate time to explore the history of Manitou Springs newspapers
through the memories of a few longtime residents, and to reflect on the importance of a
community newspaper.
The city’s first newspaper, the Manitou Item, launched May 23, 1882.
“Lots of advertising, lots of local interest snippets (otherwise known as gossip),” local
historian Deborah Harrison said. It was a Republican newspaper — the Abraham Lincoln type of
Republican.
Subscriptions cost $2 per year and businesses including the Manitou Livery Stables, Cave
of the Winds and the Denver & Rio Grande Railway advertised. The Item’s debut issue also
included train schedules and a business directory.
History Colorado’s collection of historic newspapers includes a few copies of the Manitou
Item, which have been digitized for online viewing. Harrison said no one knows what happened
to the copies that remained in Manitou Springs.
Harrison said the city’s second newspaper was the Manitou Journal. History Colorado’s
collection also includes a Manitou-based newspaper called The Pike’s Peak News, with copies
from the 1890s.
The newspaper was called the Manitou Springs Journal when John Graham’s grandparents
bought it in 1926. Manitou’s current mayor explained that his grandfather, William, was a longtime press
operator in Iowa and Illinois. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1918, a common illness for
people working with the toxic inks of that time.
The senior Graham arrived at the International Typographical Union sanatorium in
October 1918 with a prognosis of six months to live. He survived, though, and sent for his family
to join him in Colorado.
His wife, Theresa, brought their four children ranging from 4 to 10 years old, who included
Mayor Graham’s father, Joseph. The family moved into a Westside Colorado Springs home and
William Graham started working at Old West Printing, one of the area’s largest print shops.
“The Manitou newspaper was having a turbulent time then and changed ownership with
some regularity, according to my family’s accounts,” the mayor said.
“Grandpa eventually decided to give it a try, counting on his children as a big part of the
labor force. This was commonplace then. with many small businesses being family-owned, and
never more so than in the newspaper business. A town’s newspaper also served as its printer, so
commercial printing was an important part of the operation.”
When Graham’s grandparents bought the business, it was housed in the Wheeler Bank
Building, 715 Manitou Ave. The family moved into the building’s second floor; the mayor said
his aunt remembered roller-skating on the third floor.
A few years later, William Graham changed its name to the Pikes Peak Journal.
At some point, probably during World War II, the operation moved to 22 Ruxton Ave. The
heavy printing press was positioned over the creek after William Graham reinforced the floor.
The building is now home to Ruxton’s Trading Post, Mike and Gretchen Graham, the mayor’s
brother and sister-in-law, now own the building.
“Three of the four children stayed involved in the newspaper all their working lives. My
Uncle Bill worked as a reporter for other papers and as a salesman, but my Dad and Aunts
Frances and Lilian stayed with it,” Graham said.
Shortly after World War II, William Graham was elected county treasurer. His daughter
Frances stepped up to serve as editor and publisher.
“Dad put me to work when I was 7, sweeping up and performing various janitorial duties
and errands. He did not expect me to work on the presses until I was tall enough to be seen
around them. In time, he trained me in the typesetting and press rooms,” Graham said.
Growing up in the Journal office, Graham remembers seeing at least a dozen Colorado
weeklies there, since they exchanged subscriptions with other newspapers.
“Grandpa looked through them with professional scrutiny, read both Colorado Springs
dailies, the Christian Science Monitor and at least four major national magazines — Time,
Newsweek, Life and Look,” Graham said.
His mother, Eileen, also worked at the newspaper as bookkeeper and typesetter after
Graham and his brother could be home alone. After William Graham retired as treasurer, he
installed typesetting equipment in the cottage behind their home and got back into the business.
He continued working until about a year before dying at 88.
Graham took over in 1979, after his parents tired of the work.
“I’d like to say there was a detailed plan behind that, but it is mostly correct to say that
they were ready to have someone else take over and I was it,” he said.
He operated the Journal until late 1996 with the help of his wife, Sue, who pitched in
despite working full-time in a demanding career and raising their two young sons.
Graham sold the newspaper to Colorado Community Newspapers, a Castle Rock-based
company that was part of a group of weekly newspapers headquartered in Texas. The Castle
Rock, Monument, Woodland Park and Cripple Creek newspapers were also part of the company.
“I thought they had the resources and smarts to do a decent job,” he said. “However,
corporate management — with many of the directives coming from Texas — did not come
gently for the Journal.”
It wasn’t a good fit for the community, staffers began drifting away and “deep roots in the
community were lost,” he said.
After a couple of years, the owners shut down the Journal.
One of Colorado Community Newspapers’ former managers restarted it as the Pikes Peak
Bulletin and rehired some of its former staffers.
“There was a renewed infusion of community sentiment in the newsroom,” Graham said.
However, that iteration of the local newspaper was in danger of closing, but John Weiss
added it to his stable of newspapers that included the Colorado Springs Independent and the
Business Journal.
The Bulletin continued to struggle for advertising revenue and was absorbed into Sixty35
Media along with its sister newspapers. Its last free-standing issue came out Jan. 5, 2023.
Graham had employed several people who worked for the Bulletin: Jeanne Davant (who
switched to the Business Journal), Larry Ferguson (who was laid off in fall 2022) and Jack Elder
(who died in March 2022). As each respected journalist departed, he felt another connection had
been lost.
“When we heard about the plan to fold the Bulletin and several other publications into one
product — Sixty35 — I had doubts. Manitou is territorial; Manitou has a sense of identity and
with it a sense of ownership. Changing the name and focus so dramatically was something I saw
as risky, but I did not have a better idea for financially underwriting the paper,” Graham said.
When Sixty35 Media laid off reporters, photographer Bryan Oller and Bulletin editor
Rhonda Van Pelt in mid-March 2023, then announced it would resume publishing the Colorado
Springs Independent, Graham was not completely surprised.
“The newspaper business is not easy, and the traditional business models have been
challenged more and more with digital outlets that don’t begin to aspire to the mission of
informing the public or telling a community’s story.”
As a longtime journalist and current elected official, the mayor has a unique perspective on
the necessity for local news resources.
“A community is a living thing, an organic entity composed of the lives and passions of its
people. It is greater than a government, more complex than the formal organizations that
comprise it,” he said.
The people inside and around city government, the schools, police and fire departments,
churches and service clubs form the core of a community, and their stories are shared in a
newspaper, Graham said.
Add sports coverage, residents’ achievements, birth announcements and obituaries, and
everyone plays their parts in the chronicle of small-town life, he added.
“Triumphs and victories, tragedies and misfortune are shared en masse via ink on paper.
Great moments are remembered by all and weld us together. In a small town, small issues are
chronicled and relished with an appreciation that this happened in a place we call home,” he said.
Although Graham loves the smell of ink on paper, he doesn’t think it matters if a
newspaper is physical or digital, as long as it aspires to tell the community’s story, answers
important questions and gives residents the information they need. It must help the community
be stronger and healthier.
“There are many digital outlets now, but few have the mission of the traditional small-town
newspaper — to help that town be a genuine community with breathing, thinking people striving
to live meaningful lives.”
As mayor, Graham spends a lot of his time answering questions about issues, but knows
that a solid newspaper can help with that mission. Journalists with integrity help citizens access
accurate information — an essential first step for a democracy, he said.
Longtime resident Shirley Wade, a Manitou Springs Heritage Center board member,
graduated from Manitou’s high school in 1951. At that time, all Manitou students were in the
same building, the present-day elementary school on Pawnee Avenue.
Her uncle bought the Cliff House in 1948 and she and her parents moved to Manitou soon
after that. Wade left the city in 1953 and returned in 1995, when she and her husband retired and
wanted to be closer to recreational opportunities.
She also felt the loss when the Bulletin ceased publication in January.
“Everybody I talked to, whether they’re movers or shakers in town or just casuals, they
said, ‘Oh my God, how are we ever going to know what's going on in town?’” she said.
Wade has helped with the MSHC’s archives, which include various local newspapers over
the decades, and she keenly feels the importance of a local news source.
“I think the newspaper brings us together even if we have different opinions,” she said. “I
like knowing what other people's opinions are,” and finds that she often thinks, “Oh, I never
thought of that.”
Barb Nichols, another longtime resident, said she read every word in the Pikes Peak
Journal while growing up and saved a few copies, too.
Her paternal grandparents, the Meurys, arrived in Manitou in 1918, and her maternal
grandparents began summering in Manitou in 1914 and moved here full-time in 1928.
“A local newspaper that has local community news/stories, keeps so many informed, and
always seems to start a discussion (used to be at the post office). Everything the Bulletin was
carrying was always so informative, from Fire Department, Police Department, school
happenings, upcoming events, meetings, all one needed to participate in or attend,” she said.
She was disappointed, but not very surprised, when the Bulletin “went by the wayside,”
considering the competition with local television, radio and social media.
Doug Edmundson’s family arrived in Manitou in 1919; today, he and his wife, Annie
Schmitt, live on the family property off Keithley Road. Both have been avid newspaper readers
as long as they can remember.
“When I moved to Manitou Springs in 2007, I was so happy that there was a local
newspaper,” Schmitt said. “I loved reading about all the events, the City Council meetings, the
Police Beat,” and she and Edmundson had “date nights” looking for the Where Is It? photos.
She said a local newspaper brings the community together and reading about local events
gives people a feeling of belonging.
“Lack of a local news source is dangerous,” she said, because it decreases governmental
accountability to the community.