Frank Fuhr

FRANK FUHR. The Town of Meade, county seat of Meade County, was established May 5, 1885, and on the 4th of July of the same year the first newspaper was published there known as the Meade County Globe. This is one of the very few newspapers in Western Kansas or perhaps anywhere in the state that has had a continuous run through prosperous and bad times for over thirty years, and to no one man is more credit due for that achievement than Frank Fuhr, whose name deserves to be permanently honored and identified with Kansas journalism, though in later years he has turned to other lines and vocations.

Mr. Fuhr is in fact one of the very earliest settlers of Meade County, arriving here in April, 1885. He was married and his primary object in coming West was to seek a homestead and grow up with the new country and perhaps achieve a fortune. He had some experience as a newspaper man and could not long resist the fascination of the "paste pot and printer's ink," so that on the whole his newspaper work has been his chief interest in this western country.

Mr. Fuhr was born in McDonough County, Illinois, and he spent his boyhood on his father's farm in Illinois and had a country school education, supplemented by a period in the old Macomb Normal College. He taught two years of country school before coming to Kansas.

In the month of April, 1885, no townsite had been laid out, and Mr. Fuhr was thus in at the very beginning of things at the county seat. In order to set himself up in the newspaper business he equipped himself with an office supply, an old Washington hand press, which is still in Meade but is now enjoying an honorable retirement, bought a job press, which is still doing good work here, an imposing stone and a good supply of both body and job type. This was the material with which he printed the first copies of the Meade County Globe. He remained with the Globe as its publisher and proprietor until November, 1914, when he sold out and retired, as he feels, permanently from journalism. The first issue of the Globe comprised 400 copies. It was printed every Thursday and it was always put out on time. Mr. Fuhr conducted it as a weekly and as a straight republican organ in politics. The Globe throughout was the mouthpiece of the party in Meade County, and while politics and economic conditions went through many changes in Western Kansas and there were times when the strictest partisan might have been pardoned for modifying his party allegiance, Mr. Fuhr never accepted the privilege and staid loyally by the republican party through good seasons and bad.

Mr. Fuhr probably knows about as much about Meade County as any one and has this splendid equipment as a foundation for his business. He is one of the men also who had the utmost faith in this region, and through the paper and personally he defended its good qualities even in the face of times that brought disaster to many. For thirteen years Mr. Fuhr served as postmaster of Meade, retiring from that office in 1910. He succeeded D. B. Stutsman in office, and his own successor was J. I. Stamper. During his service the office was raised from fourth to third class, and at the same time rural free delivery was introduced, in addition to several star routes operating out of this as a center. Prior to his appointment as postmaster he was mayor of Meade, serving about eighteen months and resigning to take his federal office.

Mrs. Fuhr has always loyally co-operated with her husband in his newspaper work and has been a great assistance to him. She is a woman of much literary culture, is a member of the Authors' Club of Kansas, and is former vice president of the Seventh Kansas District Federation of Women's Clubs.