Typhoid Fever,
The Great Fire & Buffalo Bones
Charles Edwin Gilbert
was in his new quarters in late July or early August of 1881
-- just as he was stricken with typhoid fever. As he was recovering
enough to get back to work, he suffered a severe financial blow.
Fire broke out in the T.S. Horn
Saloon, located mid-way in a block of buildings on South First,
and spread both directions. The bucket brigade, volunteers who
were the town's first firefighters, proved no match for the blaze.
Two hours later the whole block, a major portion of Abilene's
business district, had been consumed. One of the victims: The
Reporter plant and all Gilbert's files, his equipment
and the makings of a special illustrated edition on Abilene.
As soon as the fire had burned
itself out, Gilbert caught the train to Baird where, with facilities
borrowed from The Baird Clarendon, he published the first "extra"
in Reporter-News history. The extra, a single sheet of
paper dated Aug. 27, 1881, proclaimed in its headline, "Great
Fire in Abilene -- One-Fourth of Town Lain in Ashes -- Loss over
$20,000."
Gilbert predicted that Abilene
would "Phoenix-like, rise from the ashes a finer city."
He demonstrated his faith in the town by continuing publication,
with borrowed equipment, and by hiring carpenters to erect a
two-story building in the fourth block of Pine Street as a home
and a newspaper office.
First copies of The Reporter
were lost in the fire. Other early files dropped from sight.
Gilbert recalled later he sold his files when he left Abilene
to a Methodist minister named Shuttles who was supposed to place
them in the Southwestern University library. The school has no
record of the old papers.
A few scattered issues of Gilbert's
Reporter have been located through the years. From these,
from memories of early pioneers, from private and public documents,
the story of early Abilene has been pieced together.
 During
his five years in Abilene, Gilbert set examples for later publishers
and editors. He was interested in many facets of local life,
from the bucket brigade, which was not very effective, to the
buffalo-bone business, which was flourishing. He was a charter
member of the First Methodist Church and Sunday School superintendent
for a time. He hauled around a visiting missionary, rounding
up Baptists to organize the First Baptist Church.
His consuming editorial interest
was the progress of Abilene and its countryside. He published
special editions, put out directories and publicity pieces, produced
an Illustrated Weekly, promoted and helped stage Abilene's first
fair.
No man to dodge a fight, Gilbert
involved himself and his paper in civic disputes. In one instance,
he set a precedent none of his successors has yet followed. He
was engaged in a very public duel on Pine Street.
NEXT: Competition
and a Gunfight
(Abridged from Katharyn Duff's
April 19, 1981 "The Story of a Prairie Newspaper" You
can buy this book online from credit card-secured site shopARN.com.)
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