The headline reads: “Violent Shock of an earthquake in San Francisco.”
That was the single-column story announcing the first paragraph — the lede, in journalism parlance — that states: “The residents of this city were aroused this morning, Feb. 15, at 23 minutes past five o’clock by the most violent shock of an earthquake which was felt in every portion of the town.”
This was not a report on the great earthquake that leveled San Francisco in 1906. That would happen 50 years later.
This was a story in the Deseret News on April 23, 1856, recounting noteworthy events that Utahns might not have heard of, including that lesser quake in California.
The newspaper had already been publishing for six years; the Pony Express wouldn’t start for another four years and the transcontinental railroad would follow that a decade later.
But each week, the Deseret News produced news and advertising for the territory, and next month marks 175 years of continuous publication from its small, weekly origins to the now local, regional and national publication read digitally by millions of people each month. The banner on this website — featuring an updated logo with “175″ across the beehive — now recognizes that milestone as we produce stories commemorating the efforts of those pioneer journalists, as well as look to a future espousing the principles of truth and civility we hold dear.
In that same April 23, 1856, edition came a separate story from Emigration Canyon, where nine years earlier Brigham Young announced Utah as “the place” for the Latter-day Saint refugees to settle. This time the headline read “Departures.”
“President B. Young visited the rendezvous at the mouth of Emigration Kanyon (sic), organized the company by appointing Bishop Smoot, captain; Elder Benson, chaplain; William Miller, captain of the guard, James Ure, clerk; and gave them his parting instructions and blessings.”
The story goes on to recount the movements of others who left with the blessing of Young, some of Utah’s most notable citizens: “Professor Pratt goes to Liverpool to relieve President F.D. Richards, and the Hon. Gen. A. Smith, Delegate from Utah, is en route for Washington.”
The paper noted the desire for statehood, as Smith would “urge Utah’s claims to be numbered with the Stars; and what loyal citizen does not love to have the stars multiply on the broad folds of our national banner?”
Like our pioneer forebears who established a base and then pushed outward, we distribute Deseret News content from our base in Salt Lake City to the world — espousing the principles of the First Amendment and, as our statement of editorial principles defines, standing “for unimpeachable journalism centered on the issues most core to the human heart, including faith and family.”
The 1856 earthquake was a blip; the 1906 earthquake forever changed San Francisco and — like the Great Chicago fire of 1871 — changed the nation’s perception of disaster. Sixty years later, the memory of World War I, World War II and Korea would be recounted as the U.S. began hostilities in Vietnam. The pages of the Deseret News are filled with the stories of sacrifice by soldiers and Marines who lost their lives in those wars.
And 50 years after the end of the Vietnam War, commemorated just this week, the Deseret News is still chronicling and putting into perspective the events of our lives, as longtime staff writer Dennis Romboy did Thursday in his story on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, under the headline, “Saigon fell 50 years ago today. This Utah woman was on the last refugee ship out of Vietnam.”
We are not your father’s Deseret News. We’re trying to be even better, while retaining those time-honored principles in a world where opinion often masquerades as news and news itself is weaponized.
Our formal anniversary date is June 15, when the first issue was made on a press. In the weeks and months ahead — under a banner marking 175 years — we will recount some of the greatest stories to shape Utah and our nation, and celebrate what we hope will be another 175 years.