Top of page

Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities
BETA

Newspaper The Beaver Herald (Beaver, O.T. [Okla.]) 1895-1923

View All Front Pages

About The Beaver Herald (Beaver, O.T. [Okla.]) 1895-1923

The fluidity and dynamism of the Oklahoma Territory is mirrored by the history of the Beaver Herald, the state’s oldest weekly newspaper. The town of Beaver is located in an area once known as the Beaver Strip, No Man’s Land, or Cimarron Territory. The paper was originally founded in 1887 as the Territorial Advocate by two men known only as Estes and Eldridge, just seven years after the township of Beaver had been established. Given the town’s location in No Man’s Land, the Advocate was notable for being the only newspaper published within the boundaries of the United States not subject to state or local laws. George F. Payne and Elmer E. Brown purchased the Advocate the very same year. By this time, the population of Beaver had ‘swelled’ to 200, making it the largest community in No Man’s Land. In 1892, five years after Payne and Brown had acquired the Advocate, the newspaper again changed hands. The new owner, Joseph C. Hodge, immediately rechristened the paper the Beaver Advocate Three years later, sisters Lily and Dolly Wright (whose father was the county attorney, Charles R. Wright) bought the paper. The name was again changed, and on January 31, 1895, the first issue of the Beaver Herald was published. The sisters later decided to resume publication of the Herald using the Advocate’s volume number.

In the spring of 1896, Wilbert I. Drummond and his father, Isaac S. Drummond, purchased the Herald The paper forthrightly announced its Republican leanings, but with the added assurance that it was not “radical enough to scratch all the Democrats and Populists off the subscription list.” The Drummonds ran the paper for two years, before selling it to then county superintendent, Noah Daves, in February 1898. After eleven months, Daves sold the paper to another son of Isaac S. Drummond. Francis S. Drummond’s stewardship of the paper was brief, for he sold the Herald back to Daves after only four months, on April 13, 1899. Daves added Maude O. Thomas as associate editor on August 9, 1900. Two years later, on February 1, 1902, Thomas bought the paper from Daves.

The Herald finally obtained a measure of stability under Thomas’ tenure. Over the next 21 years, the Herald would double its size from four to eight pages. In July 1923, Thomas concluded her career as the longest running editor and sold the paper to A. L. Kimball, owner of the Herald’s competitor the Democrat. On July 26, 1923, the Beaver Herald published its final issue. Kimball merged the two papers into one, initially calling it the Beaver Herald and Democrat, before settling on the paper’s current title, Herald-Democrat in 1924.

Provided By: Oklahoma Historical Society

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Beaver Herald (Beaver, O.T. [Okla.]) 1895-1923

Dates of Publication

  • 1895-1923

Created / Published

  • Beaver, O.T. [Okla.] : Lily and Dolly Wright

Headings

  • -  Beaver (Okla.)--Newspapers
  • -  Beaver County (Okla.)--Newspapers
  • -  Oklahoma--Beaver
  • -  Oklahoma--Beaver County
  • -  United States--Oklahoma--Beaver--Beaver

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 3 (Feb. 7, 1895)-v. 3, no. 18 (June 3, 1897); v. 11, no. 1 (June 10, 1897)-v. 36, no. 2 (July 26, 1923).
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Democrat (Beaver, Okla.) (DLC)sn 93066074 (OCoLC)28354250
  • -  Beaver herald and democrat (DLC)sn 93066075 (OCoLC)28354774

Medium

  • volumes

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn93066071

OCLC Number

  • 28354686

ISSN Number

  • 2158-4753

Preceding Titles

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, see https://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Beaver Herald Beaver, O.T. Okla. -1923. (Beaver, OK), Jan. 1 1895. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn93066071/.

APA citation style:

(1895, January 1) The Beaver Herald Beaver, O.T. Okla. -1923. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn93066071/.

MLA citation style:

The Beaver Herald Beaver, O.T. Okla. -1923. (Beaver, OK) 1 Jan. 1895. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn93066071/.