Kirk C. Ward was a fluent writer and a promoter of no small sagacity. Having lost control of the Post, he soon induced some friends to back him and started the Chronicle. It had a variegated career and finally became the property of one of the leading law firms of the city, McNaught, Ferry, McNaught & Mitchell. They employed a Bohemian from Kansas, named Frank C. Montgomery, as editor, who conducted it until May 1, 1886, when Homer M. Hill, who is now engaged in other business in Seattle, bought it.
The Hall brothers were conducting the Call and the two papers were consolidated, and on Monday, May 3, 1886, the paper came out with Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Seattle Daily Press. A weekly paper was also run in connection with the daily. Mr. Hill ere long acquired the entire ownership of the paper. He was a shrewd, capable business man of untiring industry, and under his management the paper became a valuable property. Interests in it had been sold and bought back from time to time, and at the time Mr. Hill closed out his ownership Harry White held some of its shares. At that time the paper was absolutely free from debt and had a good bank account and was making money for its owners.
Mr. W. E. Bailey, a wealthy young man from Philadelphia, had large interests here, and he became the victim to an ambition to conduct a big newspaper. Under these circumstances Mr. Hill had no difficulty in getting his price for the Press. Mr. L. S. J. Hunt of the Post-Intelligencer conducted the negotiations and made the purchase and at once transferred the property to Mr. Bailey. He made important additions to the mechanical department and engaged a large news and editorial force, whose chief instructions were to make a clean, live newspaper.
At the time Mr. Hill bought the Chronicle it owned the Associated Press evening franchise, which was its most valuable asset.
In passing, it is proper to note the fact that the present Times is the lineal successor of the Chronicle, and while for a brief period there was a break in the legal succession, it may be truthfully said that the historical succession to the Associated Press franchise is derived from the Chronicle down through the Press and the Press-Times to The Times of to-day.
The consolidation of the Chronicle and Call threw a lot of printers and newspaper men out of employment, including Thomas H. Dempsey, the foreman of the Chronicle office. The latter was a keen business man and a competent printer. He and the late Col. George G. Lyon and James P. Ferry at once organized a new company, and secured a printing outfit that served their purpose temporarily. The same day, May 3, 1886, that the Press was issued, No. 1, Vol. 1 of the Daily Times also appeared. Seattle, then a little city of about 10,000 population, was thus the proud possessor of three daily papers.
The starting of these two papers just preceded the "boom" in Seattle real estate, when the volume of advertising was vastly increased as well as population of the city, and both papers made money rapidly.
February 10, 1891, Mr. Bailey bought the Times from Lyon and Dempsey, paying for it $48,000. He had paid somewhere from $20,000 to $25,000 for the Press. He consolidated the two under the name of the Press-Times.
The period of financial depression which followed a couple of years later bore heavily upon Mr. Bailey and and he was finally compelled to give up the paper to his creditors, having lost not less than $200,000 during his journalistic career.
The history of its subsequent vicissitudes and difficulties would fill a volume, but can be touched upon but briefly here. The paper was on the market for a long time. John Collins had it for a time and sunk a lot of money in it, having acquired it through a mortgage of $15,000. John W. Pratt, whose recent lamented death is fresh in the memories of a host of friends, secured control of it for a time. At times it was published by a receiver. Hughes and Davies came into possession of it through ex-Sheriff James Woolery, who had taken it over under the mortgage given to John Collins.