The Colfax Gazette (Colfax, Wash.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
633 issues from 1900 to 1912, published in Colfax, Washington, digitised for Chronicling America.
Charles B. Hopkins and Lucien E. Kellogg started the Palouse Gazette in the wake of some local turmoil. In June 1877, rumor of local Indian attacks (inspired by news of the Nez Perce War) had sent a wave of panic through the white settlers of the Palouse region of Washington Territory. Farmers abandoned their homesteads, seeking protection in the towns from a rumored uprising among the Palouse, Coeur d’Alene, and Spokane Indians. The tribes, for their part, were troubled by the sudden activity among the settlers. Fortunately, the misunderstanding was resolved without violence, and by September Hopkins and Kellogg started the first weekly paper in the tiny town of Colfax (population under 300). Kellogg sold his share of the Palouse Gazette in 1879, and Hopkins, who had installed the first long-distance telephone line in eastern Washington became preoccupied with his new venture, the Inland Telephone and Telegraph Company of Spokane. In1888, Hopkins sold the newspaper to Ivan Chase, a member of the staff. Chase changed the name of the paper to the Colfax Gazette in 1893.
Colfax is located on the Palouse River near the Mullan Military Road, which connected Walla Walla and Fort Coeur d’Alene and which served as an important thoroughfare for settlers in the territory. The period immediately following the “Indian Scare” was a time of rapid growth in the Palouse region. Much of the native bunch grass prairie was converted to wheat farms, and in 1890 Colfax was one of several…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Colfax, Washington, 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