In the winter of 1907, Denver showed the rest of the nation how to fight a newspaper war. The Rocky Mountain News published an editorial alleging that Frederick Bonfils, the co-owner of The Denver Post, was a blackmailing rogue who used his paper to smear those merchants with the temerity to advertise in rival publications. Bonfils, gravely offended, decided the only reasonable response was to sneak up behind the News’s elderly publisher, Senator Thomas Patterson, and punch him repeatedly in the head. He did so in broad daylight, and as Patterson lay dazed in a weedy downtown lot, Bonfils stood above him, howling about the pain he would inflict if his name ever again appeared in the News. It was December 26: Boxing Day.
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