HALF A CENTURY WITH THE PIONEER PRESS.
Pioneer Press, April 18, 1908:—Frank Moore, superintendent of the composing room if the Pioneer Press, celebrated yesterday the fiftieth anniversary of his connection with the paper. A dozen of the old employes of the Pioneer Press entertained Mr. Moore at an informal dinner at Magee's to celebrate the unusual event. Mr. Moore's service on the Pioneer Press, in fact, has been longer than the Pioneer Press itself, for he began his work on one of the newspapers which eventually was merged into the present Pioneer Press. He has held his present position as the head of the composing room for about forty years.
Frank Moore was fifteen years old when he came to St. Paul from Tioga county, Pa., where he was born. He came with his brother, George W. Moore, who was one of the owners and managers of the Minnesotian. His brother had been East and brought the boy West with him. Mr. Moore's first view of newspaper work was on the trip up the river to St. Paul. There had been a special election on a bond issue and on the way his brother stopped at the various towns to got the election returns.
Mr. Moore went to work for the Minnesotian on April 17, 1858, as a printer's "devil." It is interesting in these days of water works and telegraph to recall that among his duties was to carry water for the office. He got it from a spring below where the Merchants hotel now stands. Another of his jobs was to meet the boats. Whenever a steamer whistled Mr. Moore ran to the dock to get the bundle of newspapers the boat brought, and hurry with it back to the office. It was from these papers that the editors got the telegraph news of the world. He also was half the carrier staff of the paper. His territory covered all the city above Wabasha street, but as far as he went up the hill was College avenue and Ramsey street was his limit out West Seventh street. There was no St. Paul worth mentioning beyond that.
When the Press absorbed the Minnesotian in 1861, Mr. Moore went with it, and when in 1874 the Press and Pioneer were united Mr. Moore stayed with the merged paper. His service has been continuous, excepting during his service as a volunteer in the Civil war. The Pioneer Press, with its antecedents, has been his only interest.
While Mr. Moore's service is notable for its length, it is still more notable for the fact that he has grown with the paper, so that to-day at sixty-five he is still filling his important position as efficiently on a large modern newspaper as he filled it as a young man when things in the Northwest, including its newspapers, were in the beginning. Successive managements found that his services always gave full value and recognized in him an employe of unusual loyalty and devotion to the interests of the paper. Successive generations of employes have found him always just the kind of man it is a pleasure to have as a fellow workman.