By Phil Roberts, Reprinted from Buffalo Bones column, October 20, 1979
The first printed newspaper in Wyoming hit the streets on June 12, 1863. Unlike the first newspapers in every other state, Wyoming’s first was a daily.
The name, the Daily Telegraph, was derived from the occupation of editor Hiram Brundage. He was the telegrapher at Fort Bridger.
While it is Wyoming’s first newspaper, the dateline for the Daily Telegraph read Fort Bridger, Utah Territory. Wyoming Territory wasn’t established until six years later.
Brundage received all of the news accounts for the paper from telegraphic messages. According to legend,
Brundage started printing the paper because he had become annoyed at soldiers constantly asking him about the “latest news” from the East or anything else that he might have gleaned from the wires. To avoid the constant interruptions, he bought a press, originally brought West by the army to print orders, and issued the paper from the telegraph office at Fort Bridger.
The paper probably had a tiny circulation. Only two copies are known to exist of the perhaps dozens produced over the summer and fall of 1863.
Back east the Civil War was raging and troops were beginning to mass for the battle of Gettysburg. News of the war was difficult to come by, way out in Wyoming. The few soldiers remaining at the post and other interested people could read about the progress of the war in Brundage’s paper. The paper had no “local news” probably because little in the way of news happened among the tiny population and what did occur was known to all long before the paper came out!
Little else appeared in the paper except for occasional short items like “gold closed firm at 44 3/4 dollars per ounce at New York.” Printed on one side of a page the size of a sheet of typewriter paper, the Daily Telegraph offered subscriptions for $1 per month or $10 per year.
The paper didn’t last beyond 1863. Perhaps Brundage couldn’t raise sufficient revenues from subscriptions. There was no advertising and probably no business in the area that had any interest in buying any ads. After all, the army and post sutler William A. Carter had a corner on the market for everything offered for sale at Fort Bridger in 1863.
Apparently, Brundage left Fort Bridger and his name disappears from history until 1881 when he turned up as publisher of the Dillon Tribune in Dillon, Montana. Unlike his pioneering Wyoming number, however, it was not a daily paper.