One of the most interesting Citizen employees of the last 100 years was its first editor, an American who fled to Canada in 1896 to escape embezzlement charges in Chicago.
The real impact of Louis Denison Taylor, however, was felt in Vancouver, not Prince George.
Taylor ran for mayor of Vancouver 18 times over three decades and was elected mayor eight times, both records that stand to this day. He had already been elected Vancouver's mayor four times, including twice in 1915, before he came to Prince George the following year.
Whether or not he's the actual founder of the Prince George Citizen is unclear. There's no mention of his Prince George time in the Daniel Francis book L.D.: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver, although Francis admitted in an email that it didn't surprise him to learn Taylor spent time in Prince George. There is little in the historical record on Taylor from 1916 to 1919.
Except for Prince George.
The first editions of the Citizen from 1916 state on the top left corner of page 2 that the Citizen is owned and operated by the Citizen Publishing Company, with no names listed. Starting that fall, that spot on page 2 read: "The Prince George Citizen - A semi-weekly devoted to the upbuilding of Prince George and Northern British Columbia. LOUIS D. TAYLOR, Editor."
Like so many after him, Taylor came to Prince George to start again. By 1916, his political career was a mess, the Vancouver World newspaper he owned and operated was finished and his marriage had disintegrated. Taylor brought both his appetite for newspaper and politics north with him.
"L.D. Taylor, ex-mayor of Vancouver, announces that he will be a candidate for the mayoralty of Prince George. We have noticed that there are a few men who make "running" for mayoralties and other offices a profession," wrote the competing Prince George Star in its Oct. 31, 1916 edition.
Taylor's time in Prince George was brief. On the political front, W.G. Gillett won the mayor's race in 1916 and Harry G. Perry took over in 1917.
Taylor is listed as the editor in the January 1917 edition that has been preserved but his name is not listed in the June 1917 edition. In 1918, the Citizen and the Star merged and Taylor is nowhere to be seen.
By 1922, Taylor had returned to public life and he became mayor of Vancouver again in 1924.
During his brief tenure as editor of the Citizen, Taylor filled the paper with a balance of local stories with the most interesting and up-to-date national and international news of the day, a tack that has been imitated by every Citizen editor to follow him, up to the present day. In the Dec. 15, 1916 edition of the Citizen, the front page was dominated with First World War-related stories and the lead headline was "GERMAN PICKED TROOPS ANNIHILATED."
Taylor also found ways to localize major out-of-town news. "Prince George Soldiers Are Equal to the Best" read one headline, followed by a letter to Mayor Gillett from Lt. Col. Warden of the 102nd Battalion in France, citing the energetic, resourceful and honourable Prince George boys under his command.
Further down the front page were the following local headlines: CHURCH LADIES SCORE BIG HIT, KILTY PARTY HERE TOMORROW NIGHT, and Annual Meeting of Farmers' Institute."
While the war raged on in Europe, the church ladies in Prince George were still busy, the farmers were still meeting and parties were still going on.
A century later, so much has changed but so little, in the world, in Prince George and in the pages of the Citizen.
