Earliest extant issue of Kaskaskia Western Intelligencer, 13 May 1816
From 1989 to 1995 I was Senior Cataloger with the Illinois Newspaper Project at the Illinois State Historical Library (now the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library). This initiative, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, was devoted to cataloging and preserving the newspapers of the Prairie State. Over the course of its history the INP cataloged some 8,000 newspaper titles beginning with the Kaskaskia Illinois Herald in 1814. I have long been fascinated with the ways in which the proliferation of newspapers across Illinois mirrored population growth and development. Consequently I have developed a series of maps showing not only where newspapers appeared each decade beginning with the 1810s, but also how many existed at each location.
At the most fundamental level, individual titles located in a given town were distinguished from each other by specific title and publisher–e.g., Elijah P. Lovejoy’s Alton Observer (published 1836-1838) vs. Adams & Breath’s Alton Spectator (published 1832-1839). Alternatively, a publisher might produce multiple editions of their newspaper–e.g., Alton Daily Telegraph (published 1860s-1894) and Alton Weekly Telegraph (1866-1878). On other occasions, two newspapers would merge to form a third title (e.g., Troy’s Times-Tribune (1987-present) was the result of a merger between the Troy Times (early 1980s-1987) and the Troy Tribune (1948-1987). And sometimes a new title would be the result of a simple wording change–e.g., the Weekly Pantagraph (1853-1870) became the Bloomington Pantagraph (1870-1878). At all events, each of these changes is counted as a discrete title.
See animated map of Illinois newspaper development, 1814-present
See Illinois newspapers in the 1850s located along railroad and telegraph lines
See individual maps of Illinois newspapers by decade below
