Frederick Gilmer "Bon" Bonfils was an American businessman and publisher who, alongside Harry Heye Tammen, co-owned The Denver Post. He was an early user of yellow journalism.
Occupation
businessperson, editor
Citizenship
United States
Born
December 21, 1860
Died
February 2, 1933
Overview
Frederick Gilmer Bonfils (December 21, 1860 – February 2, 1933) was an American publisher who made the Denver Post into one of the largest newspapers in the United States.
Career
Born in Troy, Missouri, he entered the United States Military Academy in 1878, but resigned in 1881 and went into land speculation in the Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas booms. He purchased the Post with Harry Heye Tammen in 1895.
Bonfils had met Tammen at the Windsor Hotel in Denver, where Tammen was a bartender (and editor of the Great-Divide Weekly Newspaper, as well as a worker in a curio store).
In December 1899 Tammen and Bonfils were shot in their Denver Post office by W.W. Anderson, an attorney representing "maneater" Alferd Packer after a Post article had accused Anderson of taking Packer's life savings as a retainer. In the scuffle in the office Bonfils was shot twice and Tammen three times. Anderson was tried three times but never convicted while Tammen and Bonfils were convicted for jury tampering in the third trial.
