46. Deseret News, 1850.

After three years in the valley with news from the east coming only via word of mouth from new settlers or through letters carried by those new arrivals, it was an important day in Great Salt Lake City when the first number of the Deseret News came off the press on June 15, 1850. As the first newspaper in the Great Basin and as the official organ of the Latter-day Saints, the News was a valuable symbol to the residents of the city and the territory that their frontier settlements were well on their way toward survival in the harsh climes of the Rocky Mountain valleys. Pioneers arriving after June 15th were no longer coming to a frontier outpost but rather to a "city" with a civil government, churches, businesses with available commodities, etc., and a real newspaper.

The News started as a weekly with the first volume (thirty-nine numbers) consisting of eight pages each printed in three columns on an eight by ten inch format (small for newspapers) which the prospectus indicated was "as large as our local circumstances will permit." The first editor, Willard Richards, who was an Apostle and Counselor to Brigham Young in the First Presidency of the Church stated that the purpose of the News was:

"to record the passing events of our State, and in connexion, refer to the arts and sciences, embracing general education, medicine, law, divinity, domestic and political economy, and every thing that may fall under our observation, which may tend to promote the best interest, welfare, pleasure and amusement of our fellow citizens."

From this humble beginning the News was enlarged to an elephant folio sheet in a six column format as a larger press became available in the valley. This size format continued from volume two through four. Starting with volume five the News was reduced to a regular folio size in a four column format and remained in that way until 1900. In the beginning one great difficulty in printing anything in Utah was the requirement that all paper had to be shipped to the valley from the east. But from June to October 1854 the News was printed on "pioneer" paper, a blotter-like gray paper that was the first paper manufactured in the valley.

Begun as a weekly, by October of 1850 the Deseret News was changed to a semi-monthly format. In 1865 a semi-weekly edition was printed also and in 1867 a daily, the Deseret Evening News was begun. The Deseret Weekly continued until 1898 with the semi-weekly edition continuing until 1922. The daily is still published today.