John H. Harrison papers

John Higgins Harrison was born in Lebanon, Indiana on November 30, 1867. He was the son of Dr. Thomas H. Harrison and Minta (Higgins) Harrison. Harrison attended Lebanon grade schools and graduated from Lebanon High School in 1884. In 1886, Harrison entered DePauw University. While attending DePauw University, Harrison was apart of the Greek Fraternity Sigma Chi. Due to poor finances, Harrison had to quit college and engage in newspaper work with his father. He later returned but, due to poor finances, he left school again and lacked the necessary courses for graduating. Later, however, the University bestowed upon him the degrees of Master of Arts as a fitting recognition of his literary accomplishments, his civic activities, and his exemplary life. In 1888 he went to Indianapolis, Indiana to work as a reporter on the Indianapolis Sentinal. From there, his newspaper career took him to Chicago where he was associated from 1891 to 1894 with the Chicago Times and the Chicago Mail as a reporter, telegraph editor, and finally assistant editor. In 1895 he became press agent for a large circus and two years later was press agent for a theatrical circuit. In 1897, Harrison made a connections with "The Evening Commercial" of Danville, Illinois. He combined that old newspaper with "The News", the merged publications with a third and finally with a fourth, "The Danville Press". Thus, Harrison built for his home city a newspaper property, The "Danville Commercial News" which he controlled and was the largest per capita newspaper circulation in the world during the early 1930s. Harrison was president of the Home Theatre Company as well as a trustee of Lakeview Hospital, DePauw University, and the Young Men's Christian Association. Harrison was married on June 23, 1928 to Lucille (Brian) Gilmore of Chicago. In politics Mr. Harrison was identified with the Republican party. John H. Harrison died at 3 o' clock Sunday afternoon, March 2, 1930, at the St. Francis hospital in Miami Beach, Florida. Harrison has previously suffered from a paralytic stroke November 1, 1929 while in St. Louis, Missouri. He was taken to the Missouri Baptist hosptial where he recovered to an extent that on December 21, he was taken to Miami Beach, Florida where he remained until his death. Upon his death, DePauw was gifted $700,000 of Harrison's estate and, thus, a building was built in his name, "Harrison Hall".