BANTA, Albert Franklin

Arizona State Miner (Wickenburg AZ) Saturday, June 28, 1924, p 1:3 Pioneer Newspaper Man Dies Col. A. F. Banta, pioneer newspaper man of New Mexico and Arizona, is dead, having passed to his eternal rest at the Pioneers' Home in Prescott last Saturday. The first knowledge our editor, himself a pioneer and publisher of Arizona, has of Col. Banta was in '81 after the editor of the Socorro Sun was assassinated at Socorro one Sunday morning when returning home from church by a shot from some Mexicans, whom he had offended by some of his newspaper articles. The murdered man was a printer and after the funeral his widow sought Col. Banta to help her in getting out the paper, which it is understood he did for some time. Col. Banta is the last of the old time scouts who came to Arizona and the Southwest over sixty years ago. At the funeral in Prescott Sharlot M. Hall, former historian, paid a beautiful tribute to the publisher and printer, who used to carry dispatches for the government from Yuma to old Fort Apache over 60 years ago, by reading her own poem, "At the End of the Trail."