Missouri Papers Have Played Key Roles
Few states have newspaper histories that rival Missouri’s. Its history began on July 12, 1808, when Joseph Charless pulled the first issue of the Missouri Gazette from his Ramage press. It was the first newspaper published west of the Mississippi River. The Missouri Gazette, published in St. Louis, later became the Missouri Republican.
Missouri also spawned the first “wilderness” newspaper west of the Mississippi, the Missouri Intelligencer and Boon’s Lick Advertiser, published by Nathaniel Patten at Franklin in what is now Howard County. It was indeed wilderness territory in 1819 — two years before the state was admitted to the Union.
An early St. Louis German-language newspaper, the Westliche Post, edited by Dr. Emil Preetorius and Carl Schurz, gave a start to Joseph Pulitzer, who later founded the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Joseph Pulitzer, father of the Pulitzer Prize, went on to become a giant in American journalism with the New York World. Pulitzer also owned the St. Louis Globe, which he sold to J.B. McCullagh, who then established it as the St. Louis Globe- Democrat. Other German-language newspapers followed the Westliche Post, most notably in Hermann, to serve the growing German immigrant population along the Missouri River.
Across the state, another giant of American journalism, William Rockhill Nelson, resided. He started the Kansas City Star in 1880 and made it one of America’s finest newspapers as well as the watchdog of Kansas City. Also in Kansas City at the time was celebrated
poet Eugene Field, who was managing editor of the Kansas City Times.
The oldest continuous weekly newspaper in the state without a name change is the Liberty Tribune, which originated in 1846 in Liberty, Missouri.
Stars and Stripes, the United States military newspaper, began in Bloomfield during the Civil War by troops under the command of then-Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant. It continues publication today and serves troops worldwide. A digital version serves Navy ships and their saliors.
The world’s first School of Journalism was founded at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1908 by Walter Williams, a newspaperman who believed that better-trained journalists could produce the highest-quality journalism. People in the state admired Williams so much that he went on to become president of the University of Missouri despite having no college degree.
Missouri’s earliest African-American newspapers date to 1870 in St. Louis. At the time, it was difficult to put capital together to launch a newspaper while facing a sea of racism. Freed slaves were without money, resources or land. It wouldn’t be until the 1920s before the Black press in Missouri made progress. Chester Franklin began the Kansas City Call in 1919, and it quickly became one of the largest weekly Black newspapers in the country. The St. Louis American began in 1928 and is recognized today as one of the top-rated African- American newspapers in the country.
Missouri newspapers and magazines also launched the writing careers of celebrated authors such as Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Laura Ingalls Wilder.
There are many other newspaper-related sites worthy of attention — too many to include. One site, the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Inde-pendence, proudly displays one of the most famous gaffes in newspaper history, the front page of the Chicago Tribune that erroneously declared, “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
And Linn, Missouri, is home to a newspaper with a fascinating, unique name, The Unterrified Democrat. It was named that because its publisher had been called “the unterrified democrat” after the Civil War, since despite being a Union supporter, he opposed the “loyalty oath,” which required Southern sympathizers to declare loyalty to the Union.
Missouri has one of the richest newspaper histories in the country, and you can explore the Missouri newspaper archives yourself via The State Historical Society of Missouri, online or in person at its headquarters in Columbia, Missouri.
Since 1867, Missouri newspapers have been supported by the Missouri Press Association (MPA), which is a national leader among journalism organizations. The MPA is proud to report that all 114 counties in the state are served by a local newspaper. While two counties are technically considered “news deserts” because they don’t have a newspaper office located there, they are well served by papers from adjoining counties.
The MPA also operates the Missouri Press Service, created in 1954, with the primary objective of selling advertising into member newspapers, and the Missouri Press Foundation, which is a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation founded in 1984 for charitable, literary and educational purposes. The foundation created the Print Museum in Arrow Rock and provides scholarships annually to exceptional aspiring journalists and college students.
This Missouri Newspaper Heritage Trail guide is a project of the Missouri Press Foundation. In this publication, readers can learn about famous newspapers, journalists with connections to Missouri and the important role Missouri newspapers have played in the history of the state and nation. After learning about Missouri’s rich newspaper history, encourage people to visit as many of the sites as possible.
Get the Missouri Newspaper Heritage Trail here (free, only pay shipping).
