Williston Graphic (Williston, Williams County, N.D.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,145 issues from 1895 to 1919, published in Williston, North Dakota, digitised for Chronicling America.
In 1895, the town of Williston, North Dakota, was still in its infancy. Nestled on the Missouri River near Fort Buford, where only 15 years earlier Sitting Bull had surrendered after his return from Canada, Williston was a railroad town without a newspaper. On July 9, 1895, the Williston Graphic published its first issue, with Royal H. Copeland at the helm. Copeland, the son of English immigrants, was a seasoned newspaperman whose roots went back to Kirkland, Ohio. Copeland had served as a printer’s devil beginning in 1851, and by the time he arrived in Dakota Territory in 1881 to work for the Grand Forks Plaindealer, he had established newspapers in eight different cities in three states–Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota.
In 1886, Copeland published the Villard Leader, the first newspaper west of Devils Lake in the tiny town of Villard. When the town failed to thrive, Copeland established the Washburn Leader in 1890. He also served as States Attorney for McLean County. After four years, Copeland sold the Leader and a year later re-located to Williston.
Williston was a rough-and-ready railroad town, surrounded by farms and cattle ranches when Copeland arrived, but he was ready for the challenge. To supplement his income, Copeland established a successful law office. Like many of the newspapers in this era in North Dakota, much of the income came from publishing homestead claims, and for four years the Graphic had a monopoly on claims in the Williston area. Copeland was a…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Williston, North Dakota, 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