Caroline M. Churchill

Caroline M. Churchill was a leading journalist and feminist during the late nineteenth century. and an eccentric visionary.  Upon arriving in Denver, “a good atmosphere for weak lungs,” Churchill completed a lifelong ambition by starting her own newspaper. She was a true entrepreneur — writing, editing, and peddling her Colorado Antelope and later, The Queen Bee. She wrote, edited and printed and hawked her weekly newspaper.  Tackling women’s suffrage, temperance, and the “great Catholic threat,” her paper’s circulation reached 2,500, “the highest for any weekly between Kansas City and San Francisco.” Perhaps more important, her publication gained a reputation as the nation’s first emancipation newspaper. As a Denver author and publisher, she often traveled across the country to promote her books.

Suffrage fever was present in Colorado during the early 1890s. Churchill and others called for a suffrage amendment to the state constitution. In 1909, she published her memoirs, Active Footsteps. The Queen Bee continued to be published by Churchhill until her 1926 death.