Brigham City’s first 40 years of existence went by without the public record provided by a newspaper. Church records, minutes books, personal journals, and articles in out-of-town newspapers make up the community records of the 1850-90 period.1Sarah Yates, “Newspapers come…and went…and stayed,” Box Elder Journal, (Brigham City: December 1, 1977), 10.
The first newspaper in the County was the Utah Reporter published in 1869 in the “gentile” city of Corinne, and a succession of small newspapers sprang up during its boom years, sometimes mentioned events in Brigham City, particularly actions by the County Commissioners.
It wasn’t until June 14, 1890 that the Brigham Bugler first appeared, announced by Mansfield L. Snow, a son of Lorenzo Snow, as editor and manager: “This, our initial number, is the only newspaper publication which first saw the light in Brigham City.” Its early editions had eight columns and four pages, with half home print and half “patent” inside print. This was common for small town newspapers, which purchased newsprint with pre-printed national news, serial, patent medicine adds and other material on the inside pages and local news on front and back.
This continued until November, 1891, when the patent print was replaced and the newspaper “blossomed out a clean, bring, all home print containing nearly 20 columns of local news, which is three to four times more than the ordinary weekly newspaper contains,” according to Editor Snow.2J. Cecil Alter, Early Utah Journalism, (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1938), 41.
This was characteristic of Snow, who was definitely not modest and loved to use flowery language. He boasted a good deal through the newspaper’s columns concerning the importance and excellence of his publication and also of his own exploits, even to the point that other area newspapers made fun of him.
Editor Snow’s boasts were not unfounded. The Brigham Bugler was a constant advocate and uniting force for many of the community improvements that occurred within the decade of the 90s in Brigham City. Included were the opera house, public library, water system, electrical service, fire department, and establishment of a public high school.3Sarah Yates, “Newspapers come…and went…and stayed,” Box Elder Journal, (Brigham City: December 1, 1977), 10.
Although not all of the Bugler issues are on file, a Provo newspaper noted in April 1899, that the last issue of the paper gave notice to its removal to Ogden where it was consolidated with two other newspapers.
The Herald was published in Brigham City for a portion of 1891. Little is known about this paper with the exception that it was known to have a woman as the editor.J. 4Cecil Alter, Early Utah Journalism, (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1938), 44.
The Brigham City Report published its first edition on March 24, 1892, listing itself as an independent weekly published every Thursday. J. P. Jacobsen is listed as editor and A. N. Rosenbaum as manager. It had a six column layout, eight pages, with a top fold so that four pages were local news and the four inside were patent material. From its first edition’s columns on the dangers of bonding, it is evident that the newspaper was formed partly to fight extra taxation for water and electric systems being advocated by the Bugler. All in all, it was a good newspaper for the period in which it was printed. Evidently its content wasn’t as popular as that of its competition, for a note in another Utah newspaper stated, “The Brigham City Report is dead, snuffed out.” The report was dated May 1, 1893.5ibid., 44.
March 1, 1894, found the first utterance by the Box Elder Voice, edited by A. B. Thompson, who was known as Milo Zit as a columnist for the Brigham City newspaper. This newspaper is noted by J. Cecil Alter of “Early Utah Journalism” as a really fine newspaper. The one copy found in the LDS church library is dated June 21, 1894, and has four pages with six columns each, a two-page insert, and 12 columns of advertisement.
This newspaper could not take over the business of the Bugler either, which announced on April 20, 1895. “The Brigham City Voice last week closed its lips without a murmur, gave up the ghost and joined the innumerable caravan.”6Ibid., 44.
The Box Elder County News was begun by J. R. Hunter, editor and publisher, in April 1894. Edith B. Hunter became associate editor on Sept 12, 1896. In 1898 the Hunters were succeeded by Charles Pasco and Hyrum Standing, who dropped the county from the newspaper’s masthead, as it became the Box Elder News.
S. C. Wixom, who began newspapering as a printer’s assistant for the Bugler in 1890, bought out Pasco’s interest in 1900 and Standing sold to S. Norman Lee in 1904. This newspaper continued its existence as a separate entity until 1938, when it became a “twin newspaper” to the weekly Box Elder Journal. In the 1980s the two newspapers merged to become the weekly Box Elder News Journal.
Brigham City Newspapers Dates and Names
Brigham City Bugler (Brigham City, Utah) 1890 – 1895
The Box Elder News
The Brigham City report (Brigham City, Utah) 1892-1893
The Box Elder report (Brigham City, Utah) 1901-1908
The Box Elder news (Brigham City, Utah) 1900-1938
The Box Elder journal (Brigham City, Utah) 1909-1930
The Daily Box Elder journal (Brigham City, Utah) 1930-1938
Saturday morning advertiser (Brigham City, Utah) 1938-1938
The News-journal (Brigham City, Utah) 1938-1942
Box Elder news-journal (Brigham City, Utah) 1942-1949
Box Elder news (Brigham City, Utah) 1949-1986
Box Elder journal (Brigham City, Utah) 1949-1986
Box Elder news journal (Brigham City, Utah) 1986-current
Corinne Daily Reporter
The Corinne Daily Reporter (Corinne) 1871 – 1873
The Corinne Daily Journal (Corinne) 1871 – 1871
The Utah daily reporter. (Corinne, U.T. Utah) 1869-18??
The Utah reporter. (Corinne, U.T. Utah) 1869-1871
The Utah semi-weekly reporter. (Corinne, U.T. Utah) 1869-1869
Corinne daily mail. (Corinne, Utah) 1874-1875
Some issues of Corinne Daily Reporter/Journal are available online
The Leader
The Tremont times. (Tremonton, Utah) 1904-1914
Bear River Valley leader. (Tremonton, Utah) 1914-1949
The Leader. (Tremonton, Utah) 1949-1957
The Leader, the Garland times. (Tremonton, Utah) 1957-1983
The Leader. (Tremonton, Utah) 1983-current
To our knowledge, there are not historic issues of the Leader available anywhere online. If you have access to them, and would like to help us make them available to the public, (or know of an existing online source) please contact us.
Garland Globe / Times
The Garland (City) Globe (1906 – 1925)
Some issues 1906-1919 are available online
Some issues 1917-1919 http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86091396/issues/
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058179/ 1906 – 1919
The Garland times. (Garland, Utah) 1928-1956
News of Brigham City and Box Elder County can also often be found in newspapers of larger cities, such as Ogden and Salt Lake City.
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