Tulare Advance-Register from Tulare, California • 36

Visalia Times-Delta 2 Tulare Advance-Register Saturday, September 7, 2002 Times-Delta serves area for 143 years 0 February 22, 1889 -A train leaving Pixley Is robbed and a reported $5,000 Is stolen. January, 1890 A train In Goshen is robbed and the two bandits get away with a reported $20,000. February 6, 1891 A train is held up near Pixley. August 3, 1892 The bandits stop a train at Collls, near Fresno, stealing a reported $50,000. It 1892-1893 Officers and bounty hunters search for Chris Evans and John Sontag in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

September 10, 1892 Officers find the bandits in a cabin in the Sierra. Evans and Sontag fire shots at the officers and escape. 'A June 11, 1893 Evans and Sontag are found in visalia and shot at by officers. Wounded, the two bandits are then put in the Tulare County Jail. Banned for more than 100 years, historic melodrama about 19th-century robbers coming to Visalia Sontag dies in jail from wounds.

pardoned and banished from the state. uregon ana aies mere nve years rater. 1 By Evan Drake a Tima-Ma mmm A-R follows Tulare life for 120 years f-l or more than 119 years, the Tulare Wi Advance-Register has been chroni-I cling the history of Tulare. Ih a dimly lit office upstairs in the 100 block of East Tulare Avenue, the first edition of what today is called the Tulare Advance-Register was produced. On Dec 21, 1882, WA.

Black and G.C Cox published the first edition of the Tulare Register. Today, the Advance-Register is Tulare's oldest existing business. It was not the city's first newspaper. That distinction belongs to The Tulare Advocate, founded Oct 13, 1881 by Melton McWhorter, one-time owner of the Tulare Times, which was published in Visalia. Nor was it the second paper.

After' the Advocate failed, it was followed by The Tulare Blaze, started Nov. 13, 1881, and then the Tulare Telegraph, published by JA Studabecker as a daily until its demise in 1882. Then came the Register, and at the' same time the Alliance Messenger, a paper devoted to morality, temperance and Christianity, according to The History of Kern and Tulare Counties," written in 1883. Cicero Zumwalt recalled the birth of the Advance-Register in an article printed in the paper's Centennial edition in 1982: "A small crowd of us had attended a dance in Woodville. By the time we got back to Tulare by team it was about 3 am and we noticed a light in the upstairs of a wooden building, in the lot now occupied by the Gill Building (on the north side of the 100 block of East Tulare Avenue).

"A light at that hour attracted our attention and to satisfy our curiosity, we went upstairs. There we found two young men, Messrs. Black and Cox, who werebusy getting out the first edition of a morning paper to be known as The Tulare Register. He handed me the first copy printed for luck." The newspaper has had some standing editors in its early years, 'f among them Henry A. Charters who' was editor and publisher of The Register from the early 1900s until he sold it in 1926.

Black and Cox owned the paper for only a short time, running out of capital and selling the paper to JW. Shanklin and AJ.Pillsburyinl883. Shanklin then sold his interest to Miles Ellsworth A milestone was achieved Aug 1887 when Pillsbury and Ellsworth decided to convert the weekly newspaper to a daily. Other newspapers came and went in those early years. Among those was The Tulare Advance, launched March 3, 1903 by brothers Tom and Jess Jones.

It was bought out by The Register in 1926. The Tulare Times began on Feb. 22, 1929 by Percy and Maxine Whiteside as a morning paper to compete with the afternoon Advance-Register. On Sept 19, 1932, Whiteside bought The Advance-Register at auction and continued publishing both newspapers The Times in the morning and the Advance-Register in the aftemooa On Nov. 11, 1945, both the Advance-Register and The Times were purchased by the John P.

Scripps newspaper group and The Times was discontinued. Thus began a long relationship with the Scripps that would last until 1984. In the years that Scripps owned the paper, only three editors served. The first was Tom Hennion, who held the post from Nov. 1945 until his retirement on Dec.

31, 1980. Another milestone in the history of the Advance-Register occurred on April 26, 1993 when John P. Scripps sold the paper to Visalia Newspapers Inc, which is owned by Gannett Over the past 120 years the Advance-Register has been a strong advocate for the city and its citizens. The Advance-Register led a campaign for the creation of a new hospital district and the resulting construction of a long needed community hospital," wrote Tom Hennion, A-R editor for more than 25 years, in a special book about John P. Scripps newspapers published in 1978.

One campaign that is remembered is the effort to clean up Front Street The area of what is now South Street had become famous for its houses of gambling and prostitution. A front-page editorial in the Advance-Register on Dec. 12, 1947, called attention to Alex Corinblit and his chain of prostitution houses. Led by the state attorney general, local law enforcement officials were forced to take action and the Tulare and Troy Rooms were raided in 1948. They finally closed down in 1950.

In recent years, the paper led the on going effort to get all the railroad crossings in town repaired. Advance-Register Publisher Amy Pack said, "With the support of the community, the Advance-Register has been an integral part of Tulare's past and it will continue to be an important part of Tulare's future hopefully for another 120 years." i July 3, 1 893 1911 Evans He moves to Johanna Vossler his great-great-grandfather, Richard Cullen The Visalia Bandits." In that in and San the Fox for Ifs Recently, the Visalia Times-Delta had a birthday its It's a birthday that was probably missed by nearly everyone except those who are responsible for changing the vol-ume number that appears on the front page of the paper. But 143 years of reporting the news and events deserves some sort of look back, so here it is. The Tunes-Delta is the oldest newspaper in the San Joaquin Valley and the sixth oldest daily newspaper in California. The Times-Delta has played an important, and sometimes colorful, role in Tulare County history.

Early editors were involved in a shootout downtown, another was instrumental in the formation of Sequoia National Park, and still another helped organize a power company that used water in the foothills to create electricity. The Tunes-Delta was founded as a weekly newspaper on June 2 1859, by I.W. Carpenter. It was called The. Tulare County Tunes and Fresno Examiner, and its office was in the courthouse basement at the corner of Court and Center streetsAnnual subscription rates were $3.

Carpenter promised to keep a neutral tone in the increasingly bitter political debate prior to the Civil War. But after only two months, Carpenter sold the paper to John C. Shannon and C. Killmer. On Oct 8, 1859, the two new owners renamed the newspaper the Visalia Weekly Delta, and turned it into a strong voice for the Democrats and thus, the South.

Outraged Republican Unionists decided to have their own paper, and on Sept. 5, 1860, William G. Morris established The Sun on Court Street hear Main Street The papers began a heated exchange of editorials that ended in a gunfight between Morris and Shannoa Shannon died, but Mor-, ris was acquitted on the grounds that Shannon provoked the duel. Morris soon left the area to serve in the Union Army. On his death bed, Shannon 1 asked his attorney, LO.

Sterns, to take over the Weekly Delta. Sterns sold the paper to LA Holmes and J.H. Laurence. Soon afterward, The Sun was absorbed by the Visalia Weekly Delta, and former Sun editor H.G. McClean became the Delta's editor.

i In 1876, a young man named George Stewart began working for the Delta. Soon he was the city editor and eventually the owner. Stewart passionately believed the giant sequoia trees needed to be protected, and by 1890, had helped draft the law that would eventually create Sequoia National Park. In June 1865, the first edition of the Tulare Times was printed. This newspaper changed names several times, eventually becoming the Visalia Daily Times.

It was the precursor to the Times half of the Times-Delta. Patrick purchased the paper, and Ben Maddox became editor, and later owner. Maddox became involved in a variety of enterprises, including the Mt. Whitney Power Co. and the Visalia Electric Railroad, a 54-mile loop from Visalia to Lemoore, Lemoncove and other towns.

His family would remain involved with the newspaper for the next 50 years. In 1892, daily publication of the newly named Visalia Daily Times began, with the Delta delivered in the morning and the Times in the afternoon. The papers merged in March 1928 as thf Visalia Times-Delta. In 1948, Speidel Newspapers Inc. bought the newspapers and tiiOved the Times-Delta to its current location oh West Street In 31976, Speidel sold the Visalia Times-Delta to Gannett Co.

Inc, its current owner. Gannett is an international media company with television, newspaper and other holdings in the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Hong Kong. Gannett owns 95 daily newspapers in the United States, including USA Today. Those of us who work here at the Tunes-Delta are proud of our newspapers history in this community. Just as importantly, we are proud to be able to carry on the work of the paper, to help write the next chapter of its history and the history of Visalia and Tulare County.

Linda Green is the executive editor of the Visalia Tunes-Delta and the Tulare Advance-Register. Bob Lilley, 58, knows what hidden treasure is. While searching through an old family trunk in college, Lilley found a valuable piece of Visalia history. Fittingly, what Lilley found was a play written by his great-great grandfather about two men who made history looking for treasure. Hie play was titled "Evans and Sontag: Hie Visalia Bandits." Hie text had been lost to local historians for nearly a century, but not its significance.

The play's claim to fame It had been banned in Visalia, rejected as a "blood and thunder" melodrama that dared to suggest the infamous 19th-century outlaws were, fact innocent i The piece is alive to a lot of people in this area," said Kathy McGowan, director of the Tulare County Museum. In early November, it will come alive for everyone else. The play will make its Visalia debut when performed at Visalia's Fox Theatre. "It will be a chance for members of the community to see something they've never seen before," Lilley said. Bandits Chris Evans and John Sontag were notorious in the late 1800s for robbing trains committing murders throughout Central California.

They were tracked down in 1993, when both were shot and jailed. Sontag died of his wounds, but Evans would later be pardoned. The play, first performed as the 19th century came to a close, was an immediate success throughout the state. It toured in Fresno and Francisco, selling out before the theater doors were even opened. Evans' daughter, Eva, played the lead role when the play went on tour.

Visalians couldn't handle the play's theme at time, but that was thea Now that the controversy has blown over, Jay O'ConneH, producer of the play, expects large crowds at the Theatre. "We may not be able to handle the demand tickets," he said. The play is a spectacle. loud. It's colorful." The six-act play puts a train and a horse on stage, O'Connell said.

More than 30 speaking roles will be played by College of the Sequoias students. "We have a lot of support," said George Juarez, 18, a COS drama student who plans to try out for one of the leads. With a $50,000 budget, those involved with Bob Lilley of Atascadero poses with items from White, who wrote the play "Evans and Sontag: "I', the production said they hope to make it as thrilling as possible. The play itself is already exciting, though, O'Connell said. "Some of it seems a little hokey," he said.

"But in the end it's a dramatic and humorous piece." The original musical score will be used for the performance, and producers will be using only 19th century stage equipment "The intent is to do it as historically accurate as possible," O'Connell said. O'Connell also will help open an exhibition at the Tulare County Museum to coincide withtheplay. This is the biggest thing I've ever worked on," said O'Connell, an experienced theater and television producet Larry FisheL an Evans and Sontag fanatic, said he hopes to attend the play. '1 hope that it enlightens people to the story," he said. "Ifs a Robin Hood story." Evelyn Mackay, 9L a Visalia native, said she is also excited about the play.

Her uncle knew the outlaws. Tve heard so much about them growing up," she said. The history of the play is dear to many Visalians, O'Connell said. He said he hopes both the old and the young will understand its significance. This is a genre of theater that is almost completely lost" O'Connell said.

Tor us in Visalia, ifs very noteworthy." Photo courtesy of Bob Llley A June 1893 photo shows captured bandit John Sontag. He died in JaH a few weeks later. Information What "Evans and Sontag: The Visalia Bandits" Where Nov. 7-9 at 8 pm; Nov. 10 at 3 and 7pm Where: Fox Theatre, downtown Visalia Tickets: Not yet available Rick Hfcins is editor and operations manager of the TidanAdtmce-Register..