Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/280

244 A curiosity in Utah journalism was The Manti Herald, started on January 31, 1867, at Manti, Utah, by F. C. Robinson. This paper was printed entirely by hand and with pen and ink.

The old-fashioned Ramage press, which had been used to print the first number of The Oregonian in Oregon and several early papers of the Pacific Coast, was the press on which was "pulled" the first newspaper in Washington—The Columbian. This paper appeared on September 11, 1852, at Olympia, and was edited and owned by J. W. Wiley and Thornton F. McElroy. In March of 1853, Wiley retired, but he again appeared as its editor on December 3. From the start Wiley advocated a separation from Oregon. Through the columns of his paper he arranged a meeting of the more prominent settlers to arrange for the organization of Washington as a territory. (See Oregon papers.)

The Columbian later became The Washington Pioneer, and with this change was made over into a radical Democratic journal. Because of its new political affiliation it became in February, 1854, The Pioneer and Democrat. It suspended in 1861.

The second paper, a Whig sheet, was started at Steilacoom on May 19, 1855, by William B. Affleck and E. T. Gunn. Called The Puget Sound Courier, it lasted about a year, but was revived however, in January, 1871, at Olympia where it became a daily in January, 1872. About two years later, December, 1874, the paper suspended for lack of support, but was revived again as The Daily Courier early in 1877.

These pioneer sheets of Washington frequently retailed at fabulous prices especially when they contained information about the discovery of gold in new fields. Occasionally copies of The Washington Pioneer or The Puget Sound Courier sold in San Francisco at five to ten dollars a copy. Sometimes the demand for papers was so great that their printers reproduced items about the discovery of gold on thin strips of paper: these news-strips brought just as high prices as complete copies of the paper.