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The former home of the Frontier and Holt County Independent is no more. The structure that housed the Frontier and Holt County Independent was raised by its new owner, the Golden Hotel. The two buildings were torn down by Prouty Construction. The two buildings that made up the newspaper headquarters were purchased by the Miles Family in 1965. The original location of the paper, purchased in 1904 by the current owner's Great-Grandfather, was in the basement of the old First National Bank building (First Interstate Bank), where the paper paid rent until 1955, when the bank raised the rent to an unacceptable price. The Miles family owned a lot where the drive-thru of the First Interstate Bank is. The Independent built a new building in that location and operated there until 1965, when the old First National Bank wanted to take their old building down and build the current structure that houses First Interstate Bank. The only problem was that the new building the Independent had built was in their drive-thru area. G.E. Miles, the current owner's grandfather, negotiated a proposition that he would sell the building and lot to the First National Bank, but the cost would be that of buying the Frontier Newspaper and its building, as O'Neill had two newspapers at the time. The bank agreed to the terms, and the Independent moved into the building that was torn down this last week, and became the Frontier & Holt County Independent. The office, which was actually two buildings, was built in the late 1890's. The north half of the building was once the location of the Royal Theatre, a Duck Pin Alley and a Chevy dealership. The south half, as rumor has it, served as a possible dining area for the hotel and until the early 1980's housed McCarthy Abstract. The two buildings contained two separate vaults. The vault in the North Building contained old issues of the paper, which were moved to the paper's new location across the street at 117. N 4th. The vault in the South building was on the main floor and was actually built into the hotel by a couple feet, causing problems over the years. The previous owner of the Golden Hotel, before the Carmen family, got a little adventurous one day. When he first acquired the property, during a weekend treasure hunt, he used an air chisel to break into the newspaper's fire-resistant metal vault, which he thought was Al Capone's secret treasure vault. He apologized the next Monday and had the vault fixed. As for the next big question, no, there are no secret escape tunnels from the two Independent buildings. The steam tunnels, aka secret Al Capone escape tunnels, did not go that way. The Independent sold its press in 2011 and has not printed in O'Neill since then. With that, the costs of heating and cooling and building maintenance were way too high. The Golden Hotel offered to buy the building, and that was the opening to get the operation into a downsized area more suitable. The hotel has plans to add more parking for their guests, which would open up more street parking for the city.
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