FROM THE ARCHIVES: EXTRA! Kiosk celebrates local newspapers

This story was originally published Sept. 1, 2012. We rerun it today with the Lewiston Tribune's 132nd anniversary approaching Sept. 29.

This month 150 years ago, Idaho's first newspaper hit the streets of Lewiston and freedom of the press came to the territory with the sound of gunfire.

The newspaper was The Golden Age, published by a loyal Unionist, A.S. Gould. The paper's motto, "I shall maintain the right," was "no idle boast," Lewiston historian Steven Branting writes in the city's newest historical panel. Gould proudly raised the American flag near his downtown office. Local Confederate sympathizers riddled it with gunfire that night. Gould stayed less than a year.

About 30 people gathered at the fountain circle in Pioneer Park Friday for the dedication of the panel titled "A Community of Pioneers Talks to Itself." The display traces the first 50 years of Lewiston's newspapers. The Lewiston Tribune is a pioneer survivor from that time and remains independently owned by the same family. The 2012 newsroom staff helped pay for the display.

Branting told the crowd the panel reflects "a town that really had a lot to say."

Lewiston's earliest papers began during the 1860s gold rush and were short-lived. Information was valuable. In 1868 the weekly Lewiston Journal sold for 50 cents, or $8 today. Other Lewiston papers included the North Idaho Radiator, the Northerner, and Nez Perce News.

Semi-retired publisher A.L. (Butch) Alford Jr., credited the Lewiston Tribune's start here 120 years ago to "happenstance."

Originally from Texas, his grandfather, Albert H. Alford, and uncle, Eugene Alford, headed to Portland, Ore., where they used their life's savings to purchase the supplies to start a newspaper - a press, paper and ink. When the store's proprietor, a Mr. Palmer, asked the 20-somethings where they were headed they said they didn't know and asked for suggestions. He recommended Astoria, Ore.; or Lewiston, Idaho, because of the impending arrival of the railroad there and the sale of land once owned by the Nez Perce Tribe.

"Did they know Idaho? Barely I suspect," Alford said.

The two arrived by steam boat at the public docks of what is now Lewiston's Kiwanis Park. They trudged through the mud streets of downtown where the newspaper began as a weekly Sept. 29,1892.

"What Mr. Palmer did not tell them was that this young town of Lewiston already had a thriving paper," Alford said.

That was the Lewiston Teller, started in 1877. Alford said he believes the Tribune survived because of the 1898 decision to publish daily to meet intense local interest in the Spanish-American War which involved local men. The Tribune is now run by Nathan H. Alford, the fourth generation of the family to continue the tradition.

The panel was the 14th in a series of historical displays written by Branting and erected in Lewiston. He has collected information and photos from archives around the country for the project. His next panel will be for the former Chinese cemetery at Prospect Park. It will replace the sign currently there in about six weeks.

"Nobody realizes the actual cemetery extended up to Third Street," Branting said. "There was no Prospect Avenue, not until about 1900."

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Bauer may be contacted at jkbauer@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2263.