Eugene Collins Pulliam papers

Eugene Collins Pulliam was owner and publisher of The Indianapolis Star and The Indianapolis News from the 1940s until his death in 1975. At age 6 he was a newsboy in Kansas; as a college student he was one of the founders of Sigma Delta Chi, (now the Society of Professional Journalists); and at 23 he became one of the youngest newspaper editors in the country when he took the helm of the Atchison Champion in Kansas. During his career he owned and operated 46 newspapers - 23 at the same time. Born in Ulysses, Kansas, on May 3, 1889, Eugene Collins Pulliam was the son of Methodist missionaries, the Rev. Irvin Brown and Martha Ellen Collins Pulliam, who had been sent to the then-frontier state of Kansas. He grew up in numerous small towns throughout Kansas because his father was frequently transferred. Pulliam came to Indiana in 1907 to attend DePauw University. There, he founded the DePauw Daily, a student newspaper, and in 1909 he and nine other students founded Sigma Delta Chi. Pulliam left DePauw after his junior year and in 1909 worked for a few months for the Atchison (KS) Champion before taking a job as a reporter for what was then the leading paper in the Midwest, The Kansas City Star. Pulliam returned to Atchison to become editor of the Champion in May 1911. At 23 he was one of the youngest editors of a daily paper in the country. In February 1912 he married Myrta Smith, whom he'd met five years earlier when both where students at DePauw. With financial help from her family Pulliam purchased the remaining Champion stock he did not already own and became publisher as well as editor. It was the first of 46 newspapers he would own at various times in his career. He sold the Champion a few years later and bought the Franklin Evening Star. Next came the Lebanon Reporter, which became his home base for the next 15 years. In 1944 he purchased The Indianapolis Star and the Muncie Star, in 1946 the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette, and in 1948 The Indianapolis News. Throughout his career he became a friend of U.S. presidents and world leaders and was a champion for the freedom of the press. He established the Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship Program to help outstanding college graduates pursue careers in journalism. Eugene and Myrta Pulliam had one child, Eugene S. Pulliam. Myrta died at age 30 in September 1917. In 1919 he married Martha Ott and had two daughers, Corrine and Suzanne. They would later divorce, and he married Nina Mason in 1941. Eugene C. Pulliam died June 23, 1975, at the age of 86. He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery, Lebanon, Ind. (Source: IndyStar.com)