Muskogee Red, Tramp Printer

Muskogee Red was a tramp printer who passed through Muskogee. It was during the days before typesetting machines dominated publisher's back rooms. Tramp printers were an itinerant breed of workers who came into existence during the explosion of newspaper publishing following the Civil War. They traveled from town to town, often along railroad lines, stopping to work for a few days or a few months. This is the story of how Red got his name and won his place in American history.

He was born Andrew J. Redmond in South Carolina several years before the Civil War. Exactly when he was born was unknown even to Andrew. Suffice to say, his birth occurred about 1856. He grew up with an older brother named Patrick in a large orphanage in Charlestown. He was one of hundreds of other boys and girls without parents. His lack of parents made it natural for him to exhibit no attachment to place during his life.

A description of him survives. He was a slender man of short stature. His red hair only partially brought about his "Muskogee Red" nickname. He had a typically Irish face. A wag said one could see the "map of Ireland" all over it."

Tramp printers were generally competent spellers and writers who loved a good story. They usually were keen sighted and had nimble fingers. Many could quote long literary passages.

Some were sober, thrifty workers. Many tramp printers, however, spent their wages on that liquid refreshment that loosened one's tongue. Sleeping in the back room of a printer's shop was common. It was also common for a tramp printer to sleep in a jail cell or an empty railroad boxcar.

Redmond arrived in Muskogee in 1901, after having worked in Lincoln, Nebraska the previous year. Muskogee was a humming town with half a dozen printers. Picking out the largest, Redmond walked in the doors of the "Muskogee Phoenix." He found the office on West Okmulgee and Second Street, just a couple of blocks from the Katy Depot. Clarence B. Douglas was the editor and publisher.

Tramp printers were usually needed by printers for filling vacancies or for working on rush jobs. With the Dawes Commission and hordes of lawyers actively working in Muskogee, there was a lot of printing business.

Redmond's days picking out casted type out of typecase drawers ended on Friday with payment for his week's work. By Sunday, Redmond had spent at least one night in jail. His appearance before a Muskogee town judge Monday morning was predictable.

Whether it was his first appearance, or his tenth, before the judge, Redmond found himself receiving sound advice one morning from a judge who regularly dealt with drunks. One can hear the judge repeating a frequently delivered sermon about the evils of alcohol. The day Redmond stood in court, the judge must have also pointed out how physically destructive liquor was.

Redmond spotted a bottle of red ink on the judge's desk. Quickly grabbing it, he raised it to his lips and drank it all. An old time Phoenix employee recalled in 1936 that Redmond wanted to prove to the judge that he had a "cast iron stomach."

Unrepentant, Redmond soon left Muskogee for his next job down the road. Five years later, in Topeka, Kansas, Redmond wrote his obituary. Now widely known across the United States as "Muskogee Red" because of his ink drinking, Redmond predicted that he would be found dead beside some road, the victim of acute alcoholism. He predicted his permanent home thereafter would be the potter's field nearby.

Muskogee Red survived alcoholism and the many years of living precariously. The year before his death in 1936, Redmond saw his story published in the Saturday Evening Post magazine. After many years of sobriety, he died in Colorado at a home for retired print shop workers. Newspapers all across the United States paid homage to the tramp printer who made a name for himself in Muskogee.