Lewiston Teller (Lewiston, North Idaho)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,115 issues from 1878 to 1900, published in Lewiston, Idaho, digitised for Chronicling America.
Lewiston, Idaho, originated as a northern mining and trading community along a steamboat route from Portland and was named Idaho’s territorial capital in 1863. However, it did not hold that distinction for very long. By 1864, Lewiston began to decline, while the new southern settlement of Boise, located at the junction of the Oregon Trail and key mining routes, began to thrive. In the December 1864 legislative session, Idaho’s Governor Caleb Lyon signed a capital relocation bill. In response, the citizens of Lewiston threatened to detain Lyon in Lewiston as well as confiscate the territorial archives and seal. The governor, fearing for his life, abandoned his position, and the archives and state seal were seized and delivered to Boise with armed escort. An 1866 Territorial Supreme Court split decision officially settled the capital question in Boise’s favor.
The citizens of Lewiston continued to harbor feelings of ill will towards southern Idaho, and Boise in particular. A newspaper editor and former legislator named Alonzo Leland was a leading voice among the citizens of northern Idaho. Leland had worked to secure the capital for Lewiston in the legislative session of 1863. In 1865, he edited a paper entitled the North Idaho Radiator, which lasted under one year but vehemently supported creating a new territory for northern Idaho and eastern Washington and encouraged Lewiston residents to reclaim the capital by means of a lawsuit.
Alonzo Leland and his son, Henry,…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Lewiston, Idaho, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress