| Show THE FORMATION MEETING AND AFTERWARD other Lehi buildings of that time and reprints of Lehi Banner articles Formingpress association was notUtah innovation In the East where there were newspapers which pre-dated those of the frontier country bycentury or more editors and publishers had joined together long before those of the mountain lands As early as 1839 in fact Ohio editors convened to createmutual society but their efforts were derided by atleast one of the state papers which labelled the meeting gathering of half starved political scribblers and type stickers It would be another decade before the Ohio Editorial Association was activated and it proved to be only mildly successful It remained for 27 Wisconsin newsmen to convene in the statecapital city on January 13 1853 and create what is generally recognized as the first true newspaper organization the Wisconsin Editors and Publishers Association Re-named Wisconsin Press Association in 1877 it has years Parenthetically organization is LeRoy manager of Utah Press operated without interruption for 140 the current Executive Manager of that Yorgason Utah native and one-time Association New York journalists formedsimilar society later that year and in 1857 New Jersey followed suite The concept didnspread widely though for another decade Then in succession immediately following the Civil War the Maine Mississippi Missouri Minnesota Michigan and Massachusetts associa tions were all organized Proof that states with names beginning with had no monopoly on the idea came with creation of both Vermont and New Hampshire organizations in the same general time frame prior to 1870 Though Utah newsmen were not the first in the Mountain country to organize neither were they the last Colorado led among regional states by knitting together its State Press Association of Colorado on August 1878 two years after statehood It would become todayColorado Press Associa tion New Mexico journalists in 1881 were the next to createsociety although several reorganizations were necessary 21 Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |
