Historic Territorial Enterprise returning to Virginia City
Mark Twain, reminiscing about his Nevada journalism career with the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, recalled making up a few tall tales when the news of the day was not enough to lure readers.
“To find a petrified man, or break a stranger’s leg, or cave an imaginary mine, or discover some dead Indians in a Gold Hill tunnel, or massacre a family at Dutch Nick’s, were feats and calamities that we never hesitated about devising when the public needed matters of thrilling interest for breakfast,” Twain wrote in 1868. “The seemingly tranquil Enterprise office was a ghastly factory of slaughter, mutilation and general destruction in those days.”
Those days were between 1861 and 1864 when Twain, born Samuel Clemens, traveled west from Missouri with his brother, Orion Clemens, who was appointed secretary of the Nevada Territory.
Thus was born a journalism career and a witty writing legend under the pen name of Mark Twain.
Starting March 12, the Territorial Enterprise will be reborn in the form of a website and glossy monthly magazine that will cover politics, policy, business and culture around the state. The revival, its third in the past century, will honor the original newspaper with a sometimes irreverent style and a tall tale in every issue, its editor said Tuesday.
“I would like to have a regular tall tale contributor,” said Elizabeth Thompson, the former editor of the Nevada News Bureau. “We sort of want to pay homage from time to time with not just tall tales but with the irreverent way the news was reported — have a light-hearted approach like the original.”
The masthead of the publication will resemble the original, but has an updated, modern digital style as well. The website — http://www.territorialenterprise.com/ — is a work in progress at this point but will go live on March 12.
The first few issues will have 24 pages and include some “old-timey” ads for fun, Thompson said. The website will likely be updated daily and include links to other publications, aggregating the news of the day, she said. Information wasn’t available about the initial print run, which is still being worked out, according to Thompson.
For now, Thompson and the publisher are the only staffers with herself and freelancers contributing news articles. If things go as hoped, the publication will add staffers this summer, she said.
The magazine will be printed in Carson City, which is about 15 miles from Virginia City, and distributed widely in Northern Nevada, including in the Reno-Sparks area, according to Thompson. The publication is working on the possibility of distributing the Territorial Enterprise in Southern Nevada, she added.
The first issue will include an interview with Gov. Brian Sandoval in Q&A style.
The audience for the modern Territorial Enterprise will likely be elected officials and those interested in politics and policy as well as culture, including members of the media, Thompson said.
The publisher is Scott Faughn, who also publishes The Missouri Times, which also focuses on politics and policy.
“Expanding our company in the form of resurrecting the Territorial Enterprise in Nevada is a great next step toward our company’s goal of connecting people with more information about their government,” Faughn said in a statement.
John Schafer, owner of the Mark Twain Saloon and historic Territorial Enterprise building in Virginia City and a consultant for the publication, said, “It is with great excitement that I look forward to watching the revitalization of one of the most magical names in western journalism.”
The Territorial Enterprise was founded in Genoa in 1858 and is the oldest printed newspaper in Nevada, following hand-written publications. Later, it was published in Virginia City during Twain’s time. The newspaper closed but was revived in 1946 and again in 1952. The last issue was printed in 1969. An attempt to revive it in the 1980s failed.
Twain, during his time with the Enterprise, covered the first legislative session of Nevada, which became a state in 1864.
The first paragraph he wrote for the paper went like this, according to the Dallas Morning News: “A thunderstorm made Beranger a poet, a mother’s kiss made Benjamin West a painter and a salary of $15 a week makes us a journalist.”
Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Find her on Twitter: @lmyerslvrj
