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Today The Journal stars itself in this column. Justifiably, we believe.
For it was 75 years ago—Sept. 7, 1867—that the first issue of the paper
was brought forth, at Nebraska City, five weeks after the capital of the
state of Nebraska was declared to be in existence. The next and all
subsequent issues came out in Lincoln.
The present Journal building, at Ninth and P, has stood here almost 60
years. The life story of this world has pulsed thru it ceaselessly.
Daily, feet have stormed up and down its steps, bearing humdrum news or
perhaps a local bombshell of information. Loftily above, news from the
outside has poured in over singing wires, every day occurrences of the
world or sometimes catastrophic tidings.
On these steps stood Willa Cather, journalist of the nineties, a
dauntless young female who nevertheless gazed about her fearfully after
nightfall. For Ninth street in the nineties, and after dark, was a
dubious spot. Up these steps to write his daily column reeled Walt
Mason, for he had not yet reached Kansas and fame, and reform at the
hands of William Allen White.
Noted people of the day sometimes came and went—sometimes a person with
a grievance and a club. For newspapers of earlier days were amazingly
flatfooted in their remarks. But come threat, come flood, come wars or
disasters, the presses turned on, into the new century and now almost
half a century past the turn.