Newspaper Editor Horsewhipped

By Steve Plutt, April 17, 2025

Woodland Park newspaper editor J.R. Wilson was a second generation newsman. He was born James Robb Wilson in Ohio on April 15, 1858 and was the third oldest of the eleven children of Vear and Maria Wilson. In the 1870 Federal Census, the Wilson’s had moved to Abilene, Kansas. In that census, James was 16 years old living at home with his parents and siblings and under “occupation” J.R. was listed as a printer.

In 1880, he was married in Abilene, Kansas to Miss Cora Smith. He and Cora were the parents of two sons, who both followed their father, grandfather and three uncles in the newspaper business.

The Wilson family all relocated to Colorado Springs in the late 1890s. Patriarch V.P. (Vear) and his son E.P. (Edwin) ran a Colorado Springs paper called The Press while three other sons were managing or printing other papers in the Pikes Peak Region. Son J.W. (John) had the Manitou Sun, T.B. (Thomas) ran the Pikes Peak News and also, with his father, the Colorado City Chronicle, and J.R. ran the Woodland Park Times that included the town of West Creek.  All four of these brothers and their father were known as “first class newspaper men”.

Besides publishing a paper in Woodland Park, J.R. later was the editor and publisher of the Cameron Crescent up in the Cripple Creek-Victor district. After the Crescent, he was the editor of the Teller County Banner. The Banner was described as a “Republican” newspaper  and was published and printed in Victor . 

Fred Palmer was a local attorney from Illinois, born in 1858. He came to Colorado in the 1890s and Woodland Park about 1899 where he lived with Mr. and Mrs. Stanford Batty. Batty was a local grocer and took in boarders. Fred was politically active in Teller and El Paso Counties and the Colorado Springs Republican party.

Here in Woodland, Fred also served as the region's justice of the peace (JP).

Well, for whatever the reason, Fred did not like J.R. at all. He had been fuming for quite a few months over a story J.R. had written in the Times. Then yet another story appeared in the paper that was very damming to Fred. The article mentioned no names, but it was apparent to readers that the justice was the subject of the story.

It all came to a head on April 15, 1902, right on the streets of Woodland Park when the two men met and Fred started horsewhipping J.R. They both fought tooth and nail, with Wilson getting in some pretty good blows until others jumped in and separated them. J.R. immediately swore out an arrest warrant for Palmer who was indeed apprehended and hauled off to the jail in Divide, charged with malicious assault with a deadly weapon. 

The Wild West was alive and well in 1900s Woodland Park.

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Note: the image used alongside the title of this article was generated by AI