Wouldn’t it be interesting if, by some sort of magic, we could transport ourselves back into a bygone era for a look at its people and lifestyles?
Of course a really old newspaper can provide some intimate glimpses and right now I’m looking at a copy of the Sept, 15, 1874, issue of the Salt Lake City Herald. Thus I’m “tuning in” on a day more than 111 years ago.
The paper didn’t carry any news of automobile nor airplane accidents because there were no autos in the area at that time and the airplane hadn’t been invented. However, it had an item about a runaway of a frightened horse during which a man was thrown from a buggy and seriously injured. The buggy was “smashed.” Two fires were reported. One on the roof at Showell’s saloon was started by an overheated stovepipe. It was doused before fire-fighters arrived. In the other, the prisoners’ “cook shanty” near the courthouse burned to the ground.
For the most part, though, news of the day was rather hum-drum except for some domestic violence in New Orleans — no international crises nor wrangling over the national debt.
Indeed the debt of $2.7 billion, incurred during the Civil War, was insignificant by today’s standards. The government tried to live within its means in those days, and by 1890 the national debt had been reduced to just over $1 billion.
Lets look in on history for a few more 1874 glimpses:
Ulysses S. Grant was United States president … There were only 37 states at that time. Colorado, the 38th, wasn’t admitted until l875. The linkup of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point in Utah May 10, 1869, had accelerated westward migration … Brigham Young, great colonizer of the Utah Territory and second president of the Mormon Church, was still living … The Brigham Young Academy, forerunner to BYU, was to be founded in 1875.
The Salt Lake Herald used very small headline type, typical of that period of newspapering. A big share of the front page was taken by advertisements. Column One featured a directory of federal and territorial officers in Utah and a listing of postal rates. Postage for a letter was three cents.
The paper’s news style apparently permitted a reporter to interject personal opinions. Thus one writer was able to report:
“Yesterday a Commercial Street shoemaker grossly insulted the wife of a tailor and was fined $25 for the offense. Served him right.”
Advertisements, accurate “signs of the times,” featured such merchandise as wagons, wood and coal stoves, mining equipment, farm implements, guns including breech and muzzle-loading rifles, and kerosene lanterns and lamps.
One ad called for teams “to haul 100,000 pounds of freight to Montana” and noted at the bottom: “Ox teams will do.”
Transportation ads extolled the convenience and reliability of stagecoaches, railroad trains and steamers. There were numerous hotel ads. Grand Central at Omaha claimed to be “the largest and finest hotel between Chicago and San Francisco.”
Attorneys-at-law and doctors advertised freely. A Dr. C. W. Higgins, who had just moved west from Boston really “did it all.”
“Particular attention is given to chronic diseases of females, fits, cancers, sore eyes, deafness, catarrh, neuralgia, tape worms, piles, gravel, salt rheum, erysipelas and spinal diseases,” his ad stated. “Call and see me and if you do not know what your problems are, I will tell you at once.”