In a world obsessed with the here and now, it can be easy to look at the present, or even towards the future, rather than examining the past.
News outlets primarily serve as a connection to current events, and there is a lot to be said for the beginnings of such institutions. The Clarion is no exception, and weaves DU’s rich past with the history of the greater Denver area.
Roughly 20 years after its founding in September 1882, DU was housed at 14th Street and Arapahoe Street in modern-day downtown Denver. It was in this context that the university’s first college paper, the Weekly Peanut, was established.
Editors and publishers George Manly and Clark Winsor structured the paper to include local stories, editorials and popular advertisements, as well as handwritten articles from separate contributors. The paper implemented a simplistic style while focusing on topics relevant to the Denver community.
The beginning of DU’s newspaper publication was short-lived, as it faded from the university by the early 1890s. In fact, contrary to its title, The Weekly Peanut only published four issues during its time in print. However, in spite of the small number of issues it published, The Weekly Peanut created a central basis of editors and readers that would shape the future of DU’s news publications.
Following the demise of the Weekly Peanut, a small paper known as The Hesperus ran during the early years of the 1890s.
According to DU Historian Steve Fisher, the paper faced competition early on with the creation of The Weekly Bulletin, another newspaper for the DU community that released it’s first issue on April 8, 1898. The Hesperus ran intermittently during this time before succumbing to The Weekly Bulletin due to the Bulletin’s popularity.
As the university approached the dawn of the twentieth century, the Bulletin would therefore serve as the primary framework for what we now know to be the Clarion.
The Weekly Bulletin’s name was changed to the Clarion in 1899, thirty five years after DU’s founding. An issue of the Clarion published on January 15, 1930 features an article in which former editor Wayne C. Williams discusses the process of changing the name of the paper.
According to Fisher’s analysis of this specific article, Williams and contributor Jay Downing chose the name Clarion from an extensive list of historical newspaper names in the United States.
The paper left its structure fairly untouched, continuing to publish topics relevant to the university as well as the city of Denver, such as the opening of the Chamberlin Observatory—which still stands today—in November 1899.
Over the course of the following century, the Clarion continued to develop a strong foundation of both contributing editors and devoted readers, shaping and evolving in accordance with the times while continuing to address topics important to the DU community.
The small start of The Weekly Peanut provided the mere beginning to a challenging but enduring history of the Clarion.
