Mexico Weekly Ledger (Mexico, Mo.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
2,409 issues from 1876 to 1922, published in Mexico, Missouri, digitised for Chronicling America.
John B. Williams established the first newspaper in Audrain County, Missouri, in 1855, calling it the Weekly Ledger and publishing out of the town of Mexico. A newspaperman from nearby Fulton, Williams had ties to many prominent journalists in central Missouri and enjoyed considerable success in the newspaper industry. After just two years in Mexico, Williams decided to return to Fulton and sell the Weekly Ledger to Dr. William D. H. Hunter. Hunter’s editorship of the newspaper was slightly longer than Williams’, but came to an abrupt end in 1862, when a fire destroyed the Ledger’s printing offices. The Civil War also contributed to a lapse in publication. For the next three years, it looked as though the Ledger was to be a short entry in the history of Audrain County’s press. In October 1865, the Weekly Ledger reappeared under the name North Missouri Messenger, with William W. Davenport as editor and proprietor. Davenport quickly sold the paper to Milton F. Simmons and went on to publish the St. Charles Cosmos from 1869 until 1872. Simmons changed the name of the paper to the Missouri Messenger and published it under that title until September 1874, when he sold the Messenger to J. Linn Ladd. Under Ladd, the paper’s politics changed from Republican to Democratic and the Missouri Messenger was rechristened the Mexico Weekly Ledger, to connect it to John B. Williams’ earlier newspaper of that name. Having trouble raising subscription levels, Ladd sold the Mexico Ledger to…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Mexico, Missouri, 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