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UTAH'S SIX SURVIVING DAILIES an Englishman experienced in papermaking, arrived in Utah and was largely responsible for securing the equipment and operating the paper mills that kept the paper alive during its early history. Church members were urged to save their rags to supply the mills, and George Goddard, a prominent merchant and member, was sent on a "rag mission." He solicited rags, and President Brigham Young delivered "rag sermons" in which he pleaded with church members to save their rags for use in making newsprint. A brief but strong boost in paper production came with the construction of the Big Cottonwood Mill in the 1880s. Newsprint shortages are not necessarily an historical problem. In the 1970s there was a severe shortage, and periodic shortages have occurred since that time. A good supply of newsprint is vital to NAC operations since production of the Deseret News alone requires about 295 rolls or 2,360 miles of newsprint a week. An average size roll of newsprint weighs about one ton. Just a few of the major news events covered through the years include completion of the transcontinental telegraph in 1861, driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, completion of the Salt Lake Temple in 1893, a Carbon County mine disaster that killed 200 men in 1900 and the Hebgen Lake earthquake in 1959. Other events include a United Airlines jet crash landing that killed 43 people at the Salt Lake International Airport, the Teton Dam break in 1976, the implanting of the first artificial heart in the chest of Barney B. Clark in 1982, the Utah floods of 1983 and 1984 and the awarding, in 1995, of the 2002 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City. The Deseret News and its reporter, Bob Mullins, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1962 for outstanding reporting under deadline pressure. The stories involved a murder and kidnapping near Moab. Mullins drove hundreds of miles back and forth from southeastern Utah to ensure that readers got cur- 141 |
