The New Era Archive

The placer gold fields located in the area of northern Colorado known as North Park were loosely settled in the early 1870s by gold prospectors. However, due to the area's isolation from major transportation points, mining failed to be profitable. By the 1880s, abundant hay encouraged cattle and sheep ranchers to move into the area, and the town of Walden was incorporated with an official population of 64. The isolation of Walden was mitigated by the railroad line built in 1911, the Laramie, Hahn's Peak and Pacific (the LHP&P;), nicknamed the "Long Hard Pull and Perhaps."

In 1906, Walden's The New Era was founded by the New Era Publishing Company with Mark Crawford acting as the paper's first editor. The Weekly Courier from nearby Ft. Collins, Colorado described the Independent Republican paper as a "well-edited neat looking six column folio." The paper was printed on the first Linotype machine in North Park, with the motto "In God We Trust, all others cash or good security." Coverage included Walden news, items from the surrounding ranching and mining communities, and notices on homestead and mining claims. State, national news, and syndicate articles were also printed in The New Era. As the years passed, The New Era expanded from four pages per issue to eight pages, including more advertising and serialized stories. When Jackson County was formed in April 1909 and Walden was named county seat, The New Era reported, "There is great jubilation in North Park over this event and the fun has been going in Walden since the news came is equal to a Fourth of July picnic." The Weekly Courier elaborated, "The brass band got out and marched around the principal streets of town, guns were fired, and at daybreak the women, as becomes their sex, were the few who stayed sober."

In 1908 or 1909, Alfred H. Law took over editing The New Era. In May 1910, Law was involved in an altercation with the town's former marshal, J. Norman Davis. Davis took issue with Law's editorializing and accusations that he had engaged in some "crooked work in the water right question." Davis demanded that Law retract his statements. The New Era printed the following account: "[Davis] gave him [Law] a cussing, calling him names too vile to print and threatened to give him the worst licking one man ever got, if he didn't print an apology in the next issue of the paper. Law took the cussing without a word more than 'How are you going to give me this licking, Norm? Are you going to jump onto me and beat me up with your fists or what?...It's none of your --- ------ business how I am going to do it, but I'm going to give it to you,' said Davis... 'If you don't take that back, you son of a -----, I will kill you.'"

Davis walked up to Law with his gun in his hand, and Law tried to wrest the gun away. In the scuffle, Davis pointed the gun at Law and shot him in the chest. Davis, thinking that Law was about to die, turned the revolver on himself. Law survived the attack and continued as editor of The New Era until 1912 when C.L. McFadden took over the paper. The paper was sold in 1914 to A.E. Wilkins who combined it with the Jackson County Star.