The Denver Post

The paper was founded in August 1892 as a weekly and became a daily three years later. Harry Tammen and Frederick Bonfils bought the then-daily Evening Post for $12,500, launching a newspaper war with four rival dailies.⁠[1]

It began circulating under the name The Evening Post, and Tammen and Bonfils bought it in 1895.⁠[2]

The Library of Congress catalogue record lists The Denver Evening Post (1895–1900) as the preceding title and The Denver Post from 1901; the issue of January 1, 1901, was called the “Glory edition.”⁠[3]

After Tammen died in 1924, half of his Denver Post stock, then valued at $5 million, went to his wife Agnes and a trust for Children’s Hospital. In 1927 Bonfils established the Frederick G. Bonfils Foundation.⁠[4]

In 1946 the Bonfils family hired Palmer Hoyt from the Portland Oregonian.⁠[2]

In 1960 Samuel Newhouse attempted to buy the Post, without success.⁠[2]

Post cartoonist Paul Conrad won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for his editorial cartooning during the previous year.⁠[5]

Patrick B. Oliphant won the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for “They Won’t Get Us To The Conference Table...Will They?”, published February 1, 1966.⁠[6]

After Helen Bonfils died in 1972, Don Seawell became president and chairman of the paper.⁠[4]

In 1980 the Post was sold to the Times Mirror Company for $95 million; in 1987 William Dean Singleton’s MediaNews Group bought it, also for $95 million.⁠[1]

The proceeds of the 1980 sale went to the Bonfils Foundation.⁠[4]

The Post won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its in-depth study of “missing children,” which showed that most were involved in custody disputes or were runaways.⁠[7]

The staff of The Denver Post won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for its “clear and balanced” coverage of the student massacre at Columbine High School.⁠[8]

On January 5, 2001, Attorney General Janet Reno approved a joint operating arrangement between the Rocky Mountain News, owned by E.W. Scripps, and the Post, owned by MediaNews Group, finding the News in probable danger of financial failure; printing and business operations passed to an agency owned equally by the two parties, the newsrooms and editorial departments stayed independent, and the arrangement took effect on January 22.⁠[9]

From April 7, 2001, the weekend issues were published jointly with the Rocky Mountain News.⁠[3]

In 2006 the Post moved into a $100 million, eleven-story building near the Civic Center; it later moved to far humbler quarters in suburban Adams County.⁠[10]

Publisher Mac Tully announced that the main newsroom would move to the paper’s printing facility at 58th and Washington in Adams County, saying it offered considerable cost savings during a difficult period for the industry and that a downtown office would be kept; the editorial staff had fallen from 300 to around 100 over the previous five to ten years.⁠[11]

The Rocky Mountain News published its last issue on February 27, 2009, ending the joint operation. In 2010 MediaNews, burdened with $930 million in debt, filed for bankruptcy; William Dean Singleton subsequently stepped down as chief executive of MediaNews and publisher of the Post.⁠[10]

Photographer Craig F. Walker won a 2010 Pulitzer Prize for his intimate portrait of a teenager who joins the Army at the height of insurgent violence in Iraq.⁠[12]

Cartoonist Mike Keefe won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for wide-ranging cartoons drawn in a loose, expressive style.⁠[13]

Craig F. Walker won a second Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for his chronicle of an honorably discharged veteran home from Iraq and struggling with post-traumatic stress.⁠[14]

The staff of the Post won a 2013 Pulitzer Prize for its comprehensive coverage of the mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, that killed 12 and injured 58.⁠[15]

In spring 2018 the Post was eliminating 25 newsroom positions, with five more to go by July, leaving a newsroom of about 60. On April 6 editorial page editor Chuck Plunkett ran a package of 10 editorials criticizing its owner, the hedge fund Alden Global Capital; the lead editorial, “As vultures circle, The Denver Post must be saved,” said Alden “has embarked on a cynical strategy of constantly reducing the amount and quality of its offerings.”⁠[16]

In early May 2018 the management of Digital First Media, the Post’s owner, controlled by Alden Global Capital, refused to run a new piece by Plunkett, and he resigned. Digital First chief operating officer Guy Gilmore did not respond to a request for comment.⁠[17]

Plunkett said: “I was trying to follow good journalism ethics and I was not allowed to do it anymore.” The previous week, the editorial page editor of the Boulder Daily Camera, another paper in the group, had been dismissed after self-publishing a similar editorial.⁠[18]

The Denver Post: Official website: https://www.denverpost.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[4]