ment and engaged a large news and editorial force, whose chief instructions were to make a clean, live newspaper.
At the time Mr. Hill bought the Chronicle it owned the Associated Press evening franchise, which was its most valuable asset.
In passing, it is proper to note the fact that the present Times is the lineal successor of the Chronicle, and while for a brief period there was a break in the legal succession, it may be truthfully said that the historical succession to the Associated Press franchise is derived from the Chronicle down through the Press and the Press-Times to The Times of to-day.
The consolidation of the Chronicle and Call threw a lot of printers and newspaper men out of employment, including Thomas H. Dempsey, the foreman of the Chronicle office. The latter was a keen business man and a competent printer. He and the late Col. George G. Lyon and James P. Ferry at once organized a new company, and secured a printing outfit that served their purpose temporarily. The same day, May 3, 1886, that the Press was issued, No. 1, Vol. 1 of the Daily Times also appeared. Seattle, then a little city of about 10,000 population, was thus the proud possessor of three daily papers.
The starting of these two papers just preceded the "boom" in Seattle real estate, when the volume of advertising was vastly increased as well as population of the city, and both papers made money rapidly.
February 10, 1891, Mr. Bailey bought the Times from Lyon and Dempsey, paying for it $48,000. He had paid somewhere from $20,000 to $25,000 for the Press. He consolidated the two under the name of the Press-Times.
The period of financial depression which followed a couple of years later bore heavily upon Mr. Bailey and
