Randolph County, Indiana
Daniel Walter Callahan
Perhaps no agency in all the world has done so much for public progress as the press, and an enterprising, well-edited journal is a most important factor in promoting the welfare and prosperity of any community. It adds to the intelligence of any people through its transmission of foreign and domestic news and through its discussion of the leading questions and issues of the day, and more than that, it makes the town or city which it represents known outside of the immediate locality, as it is sent each day or week into other districts, carrying with it an account of the events transpiring in its home locality, the advancement and progress there being made, and the advantages which it offers to its residents along moral, educational, social and commercial lines. Randolph county is certainly indebted to its wide-awake journals in no small degree, and one of the men who are doing a commendable work in the local newspaper field is Daniel Walter Callahan, editor and publisher of The Winchester Democrat. He has long been connected with newspaper work in various localities, however, only recently in this. But his power as a writer and editor, as well as a business man is largely acknowledged among contemporary journalists and the public in general.
Mr. Callahan was born October 5, 1872, in Urbana, Ohio. He is a son of Daniel and Catherine (Flynn) Callahan. The father was born in Ireland and the mother in the state of New York. Daniel Callahan spent his boyhood in the Emerald Isle and was educated there, emigrating to America when a young man, locating in Ohio, where the Flynn family had also located, coming from the East, and there the parents of our subject were married and settled on a farm near Urbana. There the death of the father occurred when Daniel W., of this sketch, was eight years old. The mother died October 4, 1913, at her home in Urbana.
Daniel W. Callahan was reared in Urbana and there received a common school education. As a lad he began learning the printer's trade in the office of The Champaign County Democrat, at Urbana. He continued the same in various places in Ohio and in the year 1894 he purchased The Jeffersonville Citizen, in Fayette county, that state, which he conducted successfully for a period of seven years. He subsequently published a paper in West Alexandria, Preble county, Ohio, for five years, and one at New Vienna, Clinton county, that state, for some time prior to coming to Winchester, Indiana, in July, 1911. Here he purchased The Democrat, which he has since published, proving himself to be an able and aggressive editor, fearless in his advocacy of the right and in his condemnation of the wrong. He has made this one of the very best weekly newspapers in Indiana, has greatly improved its mechanical appearance, made it a modern news dispenser and its learned and timely editorials moulders of local public opinion. It has increased greatly in subscription and much advertising matter is finding its way into its pages.
Mr. Callahan is a Democrat of pronounced principles. For a time during the administration of Governor Harmon, of Ohio, he was superintendent of the printing plant at the Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Home at Xenia, the duties of which he discharged most acceptably to all concerned.
Mr. Callahan was married August 18, 1898, to Leota Core, daughter of Dr. W. D. Core, a prominent family of London, Madison county, Ohio. This union has been without issue.
Past and Present of Randolph County, Indiana, 1914.
Contributed by Gina Richardson