Obituaries : Stanton Delaplane; Award-Winning Travel Columnist

Stanton Delaplane, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and a world traveler credited with popularizing Irish coffee in the United States, died in San Francisco on Monday at the age of 80.

Delaplane died after a long battle with emphysema. His final column ran in Monday’s editions.

Delaplane, who spent about half the year overseas to create his six-day-a-week columns, joined the Chronicle in 1936 as a reporter. He became a syndicated columnist when a series of “Postcards” he sent back from a trip were collected and published. His subjects ranged from unusual people to those he knew best, his family and friends.

One of the most unusual honors to come Delaplane’s way came in 1954, when the American Society of Beau Brummells named him one of the country’s 20 best-dressed men. As his colleagues pointed out then, he was probably the only man listed whose socks frequently didn’t match--because he was color-blind.

Delaplane’s connection to Irish coffee is part of San Francisco history.

After sampling the libation at Shannon Airport, he returned to America and spent a long evening studiously working out the proper balance of whiskey, coffee, sugar and cream at the Buena Vista Cafe near the foot of Hyde Street.

Overnight, Jack Koeppler, the late owner of the bar, found himself overrun with patrons and the drink’s popularity spread rapidly.

Later, Delaplane was quoted in Time magazine as saying, “I can’t stand the stuff any more.”

He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1941 for articles about “the Free State of Jefferson,” a group of four Northern California counties and one Oregon county that threatened to break away and form a 49th state in a dispute over highway construction in the gold and copper mining areas.

The first of his two National Headliners awards came in 1946 for Delaplane’s stories about Francis H. Van Wie, a streetcar motorman and former lion tamer who was married at least 18 times.

The second came in 1959 for Delaplane’s columns, judged the best travel pieces in an American newspaper. His articles ran regularly in The Times.