CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Cheyenne historian Larry K. Brown has spent his fair share of time sifting through microfilm reels of old newspapers in search of illuminating details about the characters of Wyoming and the Old West.
It’s labor-intensive research with a lot of “trial and error” involved, said Brown, whose books chronicle the seedy side of the good old days — murder, outlaws and brothels.
Now historians, genealogists and everybody else have online access to a searchable archive of Wyoming’s historical newspapers.
The Wyoming State Library launched the Wyoming Newspaper Project website on Monday. It has a database of about 340 different newspapers dating from 1849 to 1922.
“With the digitalized version, it gives you all the sources, and then you can take them in order,” Brown said. “It’s infinitely faster than pulling film off, putting it on and putting it back in the drawers.”
State Librarian Lesley Boughton said the site (wyonewspapers.org) contains 407,000 full newspaper pages. The library hopes to expand the database to incorporate about 960,000 pages by April’s end.
The archives include a multitude of defunct newspapers like the South Pass News, the Kaycee Optimist and the Encampment Echo, just to name a few. They offer a colorful picture of the people and events of early Wyoming. Boughton said the newspapers complement other State Library documents, such as legislative records.
Boughton said the five-year project has cost about $1.4 million so far, including about $1 million in legislatively appropriated funds.
Every Wyoming county is represented in the archive.
“To select only 10 papers that represent Wyoming might be fine for the national level, but not for the level we’re interested in,” he said.
