| Show UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION MERCUR This Tooele County mining camp began its life as Lewiston and its first newspaper was the Lewiston Mercury estab lished by Higgins in July 1893 In his initial edition the publisher proclaimed The object of the paper is to herald the great richness of the Camp Floyd Mining District and to takefew chestnuts out of the fire for our own consumption perchance becomebonanza king ormining expert in yellow laced boots By the Fall of that year the town numbered 100 citizens which prompted Higgins to report Lewiston now hasgeneral store weekly paper an eating house very few idle men great expectations andpopulation of 100 souls The paperbanner changed to the Mercur Mercury when the community was renamed and in 1899 Higgins departed leaving management in the hands of George Ferguson The Utah County Democrat commented We regret Brother Higgins retirement He founded the Mercury when Mercur was young and when he was obliged to usetent forprinting office He is one of the few eminently financially successful newspapermen in Utah By 1900 when Mercurpopulation had swollen to351 James Louder formerly of the Silver Reef Miner was the publisher By that time there wascompetitor the Mercur Miner published by James Jakeman Two papers were one too many and the Mercury closed its doors The Miner had begun in December 1895 and two years later was under the guidance of Norman Dresser By 1903 Mercur had reached the zenith of its population nearly000 And when the last mine closed March 30 1913 it becameghost town With its death needless to say the Miner perished as well Perhaps Mercurdemise could be described in terms similar to those attributed to Samuel Clemens Mark Twain Hearing reports that he had succumbed the noted writer penned The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated Mercur too showed itself to berather active though undeveloped corpse three-quarters ofcentury later 70 Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |
