Frederick Gilmer Bonfils
{{Short description|American publisher (1860–1933)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Frederick Gilmer Bonfils
| image = Bonfils Publisher of Denver LCCN2016893157.jpg
| caption = Bonfils in 1924
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1860|12|21}}
| birth_place = Troy, Missouri, US
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1933|2|2|1860|12|21}}
| death_place = Denver, Colorado, US
| resting_place = Fairmount Cemetery
| occupation = Newspaper Publisher
| parents =
| mother =
| father =
| relatives = Helen Bonfils (daughter)
May Bonfils Stanton (daughter)
}}
Frederick Gilmer Bonfils (December 21, 1860 – February 2, 1933) was an American businessman and publisher who, alongside Harry Heye Tammen, owned The Denver Post, the Kansas City Post, and the Sells Floto Circus.
Early life
Born in Troy, Missouri, he entered the United States Military Academy in 1878, but resigned in 1881 and went into land speculation in the Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas booms.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}}
Career
Bonfils had met Harry Heye Tammen at the Windsor Hotel in Denver, where Tammen was a bartender, an editor of the Great-Divide Weekly Newspaper, as well as inauthentic Native-American memorabilia. Together, in 1895, they bought The Denver Post.{{Cite book |last1=Leavitt |first1=Craig |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JaLnCwAAQBAJ&dq=%E2%80%9CHarry+Heye+Tammen%E2%80%9D&pg=PP1 |title=Herndon Davis: Painting Colorado History, 1901–1962 |last2=Noel |first2=Thomas J. |date=2016-02-15 |publisher=University Press of Colorado |isbn=978-1-60732-420-1 |language=en}}
In December 1899, Tammen and Bonfils were shot in their office by W. W. Anderson, an attorney representing cannibal Alferd Packer, after they published an article that had accused Packer of cannabalism. In the scuffle, Bonfils was shot once in the neck, and Tammen once in the chest. Anderson was tried three times, but never convicted while Tammen and Bonfils were convicted for jury tampering in the third trial.{{Cite book |last=American Council of Learned Societies |url=http://archive.org/details/dictionaryofamer211amer |title=Dictionary of American biography |date=1943 |publisher=New York, C. Scribner's Sons |others=University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign}}
Bonfils took $250,000 of bribes from Harry Ford Sinclair to not report on the Teapot Dome scandal. Bonfils and Tammen both justified their style of sensationalistic journalism, as well as crediting their success as newspapermen, with the quote "a dogfight on a Denver street is more important than a war in Europe."{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y0gEAAAAMBAJ&dq=a+dogfight+on+a+Denver+street+is+more+important+than+a+war+in+Europe&pg=PA15 |title=LIFE |date=1954-03-29 |publisher=Time Inc |language=en}}
In 1902, Bonfils and Tammen bought the Sells Brothers Circus. Tammen rebranded the show to the Sells Floto Circus, after Otto Floto, the sportswriter of The Denver Post, who was involved in the publicity work for the show.{{Cite journal |last=Johnston |first=Winifred |date=1935 |title=PASSING OF THE 'WILD WEST': A Chapter in the History of American Entertainment |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43462218 |journal=Southwest Review |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=33–51 |jstor=43462218 |issn=0038-4712}} Bonfils and Tammen, known together as "Tam and Bon",{{Cite book |last=Bricklin |first=Julia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W99jDwAAQBAJ&q=Tam+and+Bon&pg=PA22 |title=Polly Pry: The Woman Who Wrote the West |date=2018-09-01 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4930-3440-6 |language=en}} owned the show until 1921, when it was one of a number of shows acquired by the American Circus Corporation.{{Cite web |date=2008-06-11 |title=Bailey and the Ringlings |url=http://www.ringling.com/explore/history/bailey_2.aspx |access-date=2023-12-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611203430/http://www.ringling.com/explore/history/bailey_2.aspx |archive-date=June 11, 2008 }}
In 1909, Bonfils and Tammen bought the Kansas City Post, and owned it until selling it to Walter S. Dickey in 1922, who then bought the Kansas City Journal and combined them into the Kansas City Journal-Post.{{Cite web |last=Ford |first=Susan Jezak |date=2003 |title=Biography of Walter S. Dickey (1862-1931), Newspaper Owner |url=https://kchistory.org/document/biography-walter-s-dickey-1862-1931-newspaper-owner}} J. Ogden Armour was a silent partner in the endeavor. The Post with its tabloid format, red headlines and yellow journalism was closely tied to the rise of the Tom Pendergast political machine in Kansas City.{{Cite web |date=2007-12-12 |title=The Kansas City Journal-Post Digital Access Project |url=http://library.umkc.edu/spec-col/journalpost/jp-intro.htm |access-date=2023-12-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071212012313/http://library.umkc.edu/spec-col/journalpost/jp-intro.htm |archive-date=December 12, 2007 }}
Death
Bonfils died of encephalitis at his home in Denver, Colorado in 1933,Staff report (February 3, 1933). F. G. BONFILS DEAD; VETERAN EDITOR; Built The Denver Post Into One of the Largest Newspapers in the Nation. HAD SPECTACULAR CAREER I Long a Circus Owner. Took Part in Rush Into Indian Territory. Important Teapot Dome Witness. New York Times and was interred in the Fairmount Mausoleum at Fairmount Cemetery, Denver. At the time of his death, he was pursuing a libel lawsuit against the Post
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Portal|Biography}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Frederick Gilmer Bonfils}}
- {{Find a Grave|7706493}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonfils, Frederick Gilmer}}
Category:The Denver Post people
Category:People from Troy, Missouri
Category:United States Military Academy alumni
Category:Editors of Colorado newspapers