Pioneer Pieces: Mining Town News

The Territorial Express was the first newspaper published in Nevada territory and set the pattern for all frontier newspapers thereafter.

Began in 1858 in Genoa, the Express moved to Carson City and finally to South C Street in Virginia City.
Joseph Goodman and Dennis McCarthy wee the gun toting, whiskey drinking editors with Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) as an early reporter.

Editors of this period were often attacked and even murdered for their editorials.  Most were forced to carry guns for personal protection.

All of this was considered normal activity for a newspaper editor who's main job was to print the opinions of the rough and ready mining towns.  Often his opinion was not shared by the citizens and measures were taken to show the editor was the true opinion of the town was. In one such instance,  Joseph Goodman and rival editor Tom Fitch of the Virginia Daily Union met for a duel in which Fitch hit Goodman  in the kneecap, crippling him for life. Such was the life of the early newspaper editors in the West.

Next time we travel to Nevada to discover the Comstock Lode