Territorial Enterprise: Mark Twain's Nevada newspaper comes back to life

Writer whose real name was Samuel Clemens spent two years as reporter at the newspaper

Mark Twain (Getty)

Mark Twain did not always have nice things to say about newspapers. Sometimes, he did not always have nice things to say about the editors who employed him.

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed,” said Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens. “If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.”

Between 1862-64, Twain’s stories – some true, some fictional- were printed in the Territorial Enterprise, a newspaper published in Virginia City, 20 miles from Reno. It was the first newspaper to be printed in Nevada and once enjoyed the highest circulation of any publication west of the Mississippi.

The Territorial Enterprise was the first newspaper to be published in Nevada

But after its first, celebrated half-century, the newspaper struggled to survive. It spluttered to life occasionally, and was last published in the 1980s.

Now, Twain’s newspaper is back. Last month, the Territorial Enterprise was revived as a monthly print publication with an accompanying website. Contained within its first edition in the new era with a fictional story - The True Story of the Comstock Lode Discovery - that Twain himself might have penned.

“We had a mixture of news and a tall tale,” editor Elizabeth Thompson told The Independent. “We have a small and energetic team with people wearing multiple hats.”

The Territorial is hardly the only history publication confronting the challenges of the digital age. First published in 1858, it will now form part of the Capitol Publishing Group, the parent company of a weekly newspaper in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Robert Hirst, General Editor at the Mark Twain Project, an online research project focusing on the life and work of the man who penned The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, said he believed Twain's time on the newspaper had been significant.

"We can read only 10 or 20 per cent of what he wrote when he was there because the remainder was destroyed," he said. "But I think he used that time to [experiment] as a writer."

Ron James, former Nevada state historic preservation officer and author of four books on Virginia City, welcomed the newspaper's return to publication.

Mr James told the Associated Press that the Territorial Enterprise was one of the most prestigious newspapers in the West in the 1860s and 1870s because of its serious coverage of mining in one of the richest mineral troves ever - the Comstock Lode.

“I’ve always said Samuel Clemens was born in Missouri and Mark Twain was born in Nevada, and without his western sojourn there’s no way he would have been a nationally renowned author,” he said.

“He and the other reporters didn’t spend all their time lying to the public, just a portion of their time.”