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The National Endowment for the Humanities now has 15 Nevada newspapers available in digitized editions, primarily from the late 1800s to the early 1900s.
Jeffrey Kintop, administrator of the Nevada State Library and Archives, says “a special thanks should go to the Imaging and Preservation Services at the State Library, Archives and Public Records Division, who tenderly made the second master from the original microfilm stored in the State Archives’ vault.”
The project is called Chronicling America, Historic American Newspapers. In Nevada, it involves adding 100,000 pages to the digital archives.
The Daily Appeal’s editor at the time of the issue pictured here was Henry Rust Mighels (better known as Harry), a significant figure in the history of the state, a Civil War veteran who was elected state printer in 1868 and later won office to the state Assembly. He lost a bid for lieutenant governor.
It was, in fact, Mighels who inspired the name of the Appeal.
“The name of my paper is the Carson Daily Appeal. It was named out of complement to me by the publishers after the Marysville Appeal, a paper which I started in 1860 and left just before going home that year,” he wrote to his future wife, Nellie, who eventually joined him in Carson City and helped run the paper.
Although the capital city has sprouted in the century and a half since — both in trees and population — Mighels accurately described the scene that generally persists to this day:
“Carson is situated in a pleasant little valley — barren and treeless, though — surrounded by high barren hills on the summit of some of which large patches of snow are still to be seen. By looking out of the window before me I can see Job’s Peak, a lofty, cloud-kissing mountain white with eternal snow. This is a picturesque region. Carson itself stands at an elevation of some 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. The climate is generally pleasant and healthful. The only objection that I have experienced is the high winds which too frequently blow through the mountain gorges.”