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Chronicling America
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Newspaper The Flagstaff Sun-Democrat (Flagstaff, Ariz.) 1896-1897 Sun-democrat

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About The Flagstaff Sun-Democrat (Flagstaff, Ariz.) 1896-1897

Artemis E. Fay published the first issue of the weekly Peach Springs Arizona Champion on September 15, 1883. Fay was an itinerant publisher, who previously had been editor of the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson and founder of Tombstone’s Weekly Nugget. He chose to establish a newspaper at the small settlement, believing Peach Springs would become the major commercial center along the newly constructed Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in northern Arizona.

Soon realizing his error, Fay relocated the paper on February 2, 1884, to Flagstaff, where it became the grandparent of the current Arizona Daily Sun, the town’s oldest continuous business. The following year, Fay sold the Champion. Several owners followed in quick succession until George H. Tinker purchased the Champion in April 1886, after a fire in February destroyed most of the Flagstaff business area and gutted the newspaper office. Clarkson M. Funston, editor of the Mohave County Miner, bought the paper in early 1891. In May of that year, he changed its name to the Coconino Sun to coincide with the founding of Coconino County, with Flagstaff as the county seat. Six months later, the name was changed yet again, this time to the Coconino Weekly Sun.

In December 1896, attorney Jerome Edwin Jones, owner of the rival Flagstaff Democrat, purchased the Coconino Weekly Sun and merged the two newspapers to form the Flagstaff Sun-Democrat. Because Flagstaff was known as “The Skylight City,” Jones changed the name of the newspaper on November 25, 1896, to the Skylight Kicker, promising “to kick higher, quicker, truer, harder and more than any other paper in the West.” The title lasted until January 15, 1898, when Funston repurchased the paper and changed the masthead back to the Coconino Sun. Jones, meanwhile, established a rival newspaper, the Flagstaff Gem. After Funston’s death in 1908, Fred S. Breen became publisher and editor of the Coconino Sun, which he ran until his own death in 1932.

Although several newspapers appeared in Flagstaff during this era, the Coconino Sun was always the dominant publication. Over the decades, it faithfully reported weekly news of the growing town, as well as the development of the area’s main enterprises–railroading; ranching; lumbering; tourism; government; astronomy, with the founding of Lowell Observatory in 1894; and education, with the establishment of the Northern Arizona Normal School (now Northern Arizona University) in 1899. Unlike thousands of other small-town newspapers that served a relatively limited hinterland, the Coconino Sun covered news across the vast geographical expanse of northern Arizona, an area larger than many Eastern states combined, including the nearby Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations and the Grand Canyon.

Research provided by the University of Arizona Libraries.

Provided By: Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records; Phoenix, AZ

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Flagstaff Sun-Democrat (Flagstaff, Ariz.) 1896-1897

Other Title

  • Sun-democrat

Dates of Publication

  • 1896-1897

Created / Published

  • Flagstaff, Ariz. : Jones and Jackson, -1897.

Headings

  • -  Flagstaff (Ariz.)--Newspapers
  • -  Coconino County (Ariz.)--Newspapers
  • -  Arizona--Coconino County
  • -  Arizona--Flagstaff
  • -  United States--Arizona--Coconino--Flagstaff

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Began Dec. 3, 1896.
  • -  -v. 15, no. 11 (Nov. 18, 1897).
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Merger of: Coconino weekly sun, and: Flagstaff democrat.
  • -  Split into: Skylight kicker, and: Coconino sun (Flagstaff, Ariz. : 1898).
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 14, no. 15 (Jan. 7, 1897).
  • -  Coconino sun (Flagstaff, Ariz. : 1898) 2158-2637 (DLC)sn 87062055 (OCoLC)15161407
  • -  Skylight kicker 2158-4818 (DLC)sn 94050555 (OCoLC)31640681

Medium

  • volumes : illustrations

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn94050554

OCLC Number

  • 31681759

ISSN Number

  • 2158-480x

Preceding Titles

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Flagstaff Sun-Democrat Flagstaff, Ariz. -1897. (Flagstaff, AZ), Jan. 1 1896. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn94050554/.

APA citation style:

(1896, January 1) The Flagstaff Sun-Democrat Flagstaff, Ariz. -1897. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn94050554/.

MLA citation style:

The Flagstaff Sun-Democrat Flagstaff, Ariz. -1897. (Flagstaff, AZ) 1 Jan. 1896. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn94050554/.