| Show COLORFUL PUBLISHERS - THEN AND NOW some 20 miles from St George He found it possible to print stock market reports and news from the States as pioneer settlers referred to the land theyleft behind when the Deseret Telegraph Company lines were extended from Leeds to Silver Reef on March 1877 One of the Echoearliest telegraphed stories wired directly from the execution site at not far-distant Mountain Meadow concerned the March 23rd execution by firing squad of John Lee The Cedar City man was held responsible for the infamous massacre ofwagontrain party travelling from Arkansas and Missouri to California The bloody crime had taken place ingrassy low-lying valley southwest of present-day Cedar City so that was chosen as the place to carry out the death penalty In 1879 Johnson sold the Echo and three years later on June 24 1882 beganmove to Mexico He got only as far as Arizona where he died later that year His Silver Reef paper went into the hands of two equally well-traveled newsmen brothers Edward and John Pike and its name was changed to the Miner It would survive an antiMormon label vigilante attempts to destroy its plant and two libel suits before its death knell was written April 1883 The Pikes had earlier established the Corrine Daily Record on February 16 1877 In the American Newspaper Directory Corrine was described as about 70 miles northwest of Salt Lake City with which it is connected by steamer Strange verbage indeed for the desert on which Mormon pioneers had established their Rocky Mountain territory But steamers did indeed ply Great Salt Lake and Corrine was the northern port The Record gradually reduced its frequency from daily to semi-weekly to weekly and finally later in that same year passed into newspaper obscurity While Edward Pike left no further tracks on the territoryjournalistic records his brother appeared briefly inmanagement role at the Salt Lake Democrat from May to October 1886 He left atconvenient time for the paper produced its final daily edition on January 1887 Annals of Utahearly journalists would have to include the story of controversial Legh it was pronounced Lee 175 Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |
