Grand Encampment, Wyoming was in the midst of a copper mining boom at the beginning of the 20th century. And the Grand Encampment Herald, the official newspaper of the Grand Encampment Mining District, had all the news that was fit to print. A subscription cost only two dollars a year and the paper was published every Friday.
While the newspaper kept townspeople up to date on happenings locally, it also advertised the merits of the area. The newspaper’s editor wrote glowingly of a “city of opportunity”, complete with schools, churches, electric lights, good hotels and two banks.
The paper conveyed the remarkable story of the town’s rapid development. In 1901, all merchandise, building material and machinery needed to support the town and its surroundings had to be hauled in from Walcott by horse driven freight teams. But by 1908, Encampment was connected to the outside world by the Saratoga and Encampment Railroad.
Advertisers in the Grand Encampment Herald included doctors, lawyers, and The Wyoming Hotel, which claimed to be “not the largest, but the neatest and coziest temperance hotel in the city”.
Learn more in the Robert C. Warner papers at UW’s American Heritage Center