(Publisher’s note: the following article is a teaser for the Star’s annual Historical Edition, which is found in this week’s newspaper.)
The earliest Green River Star available to anyone is dated Nov. 17, 1905.
The archives at the Star’s building only go back to 1940, due to a fire destroying the newspaper’s earliest archive books, but the newspaper can be found online on the Wyoming State Library’s newspaper project, newspapers.wyo.gov.
Listed as Vol. XVI - No.14, the newspaper is faded in some parts, while ink smudges occasionally obscure text in others. Only one page exists -- the cover sheet.
The newspaper stands out by having Christmas ads for the Morris Mercantile Company and P. O. Christensen prominently displayed on the cover of the publication, just below the newspaper’s nameplate. Below that Christensen ad, a list of professional cards are printed next to a state news column.
Those cards are a whose who of early Sweetwater history, featuring ads for Dr. John Gilligan, as well as Dr. J. W. Hawk, Dr. Charlotte Hawk and Rock Springs attorney T.S. Taliaferro.
“Calls left at Campbell’s Drug Store will receive prompt attention,” Dr. Gilligan’s ad reads.
Gilligan was a longtime physician in Green River who served as the town’s sixth mayor, in a short 1901-1902 term.
Dr. J. W. Hawk is one half of the Tomahawk Hotel building’s namesake.
News featured in the paper was mostly dedicated to society news, with a short article about vast improvements to the Union Pacific Railroad also featuring near the top of the page.
Those improvements focused on double tracking that would be done in three places: two miles of work near a place identified as Haimoss, with a second section of about 25 miles from Lookout to Hanna and a third section ranging 25 miles from Point of Rocks to Rock Springs.
Work was scheduled to begin March 1, 1906.
Right next to that article, was a piece about an afternoon gathering.
“Wednesday afternoon Mrs. Karl Spinner entertained most delightfully a number of her lady friends at tea,” an article titled “Mrs. Spinner Entertains” begins. “After the hours had glided away in pleasant conversation, the guests repaired to the dining room where they gathered around the table made beautiful with an embroidered centerpiece and red and white carnations.”
State news on the page consisted of short, one or two sentence paragraphs of occurrences throughout Wyoming.
A large white wolf, measuring 7 feet, 2 inches from tip to tip was killed near Pinedale. Residents of Lander were working toward establishing a Catholic school. A report from Rawlins stated that nearly half a million sheep were sold within the previous two months, with prices ranging from 50 cents to $1.
Local news wasn’t completely left out of the paper. A short paragraph about the Sweetwater Brewing Company suggested the brewery planned an expansion.
“The Sweetwater Brewing Co. has been making a general cleaning in the yard of the company, and we suppose they intend to do some building to meet the demands of their growing business,” the report read.
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