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Newspaper The Daily Progressive-Miner (Ketchikan, Alaska) 1915-1919

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About The Daily Progressive-Miner (Ketchikan, Alaska) 1915-1919

Jeffrey Rivard created the Daily Progressive-Miner when he combined his weekly Ketchikan Progressive, which he started in October 1914, with the Ketchikan Morning Mail, and the Ketchikan Miner, in September 1915. In addition to the Daily Progressive-Miner, Rivard published a separate weekly called the Progressive. In Bent Pins to Chains, Evangeline Atwood and Lew Williams, Jr., write that the linotype operator of the Daily Progressive-Miner died during the Spanish Flu outbreak and was not replaced, making it a one-man operation. Rivard sold the paper in 1919 to a group of businessmen who ran the Ketchikan Alaska Pioneer, and combined the papers to create the Ketchikan Times on May 1, 1919.

Rivard held, and shared, strong opinions, taking stands against Prohibition as well as women smoking. Rivard wrote that until Alaska was able to levy or collect taxes it needed the money from alcohol licenses. Atwood and Williams wrote that Rivard despised the sight of women smoking and he went so far as to say “just because women are wearing pants is no sign they should have the gall to smoke a pill in public.”

However, Rivard’s most controversial stance was that Alaska should be split into four separate geographical divisions along the Federal court district lines to allow Southeastern Alaska to apply for statehood on its own. Rivard explained in an editorial on October 23, 1915, that “just so long as Alaska shall remain a whole for government purposes, just so long shall we be deprived of the right to govern ourselves.” He reasoned that “it will take many years – if ever – before the second [Nome] and fourth [Fairbanks] divisions shall reach the present state of development that the first [Juneau] and third [Anchorage] divisions have,” and that if the other divisions were “left attached to our natural progressive kite, we shall be hampered in obtaining that which we are entitled to, and that is Statehood.” This caused considerable scorn from the other parts of Alaska, and the editor of the Alaska Citizen, J. Caskey, retorted in the July 12, 1915 issue that “geographically and otherwise, the First division is the most insignificant subdivision of Alaska.” Caskey went on to blast the “paternal” attitude and “hoggishness” of the first division.

Rivard also earned the ire of other editors for his stance against the Alaska Railroad, which did not endear him to the areas now known as the “rail belt.” He claimed that the railroad was a waste of taxpayers’ money and that it would never go all the way to Fairbanks because the city was too far from markets to develop a stable economy. In the June 2, 1917 issue, Rivard reported on the sale of a railroad near Fairbanks with the headline “Government buys white elephant in Tanana Valley”.

Provided By: Alaska State Library Historical Collections

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Daily Progressive-Miner (Ketchikan, Alaska) 1915-1919

Dates of Publication

  • 1915-1919

Created / Published

  • Ketchikan, Alaska : Ketchikan Print Co., -1919.

Headings

  • -  Ketchikan (Alaska)--Newspapers
  • -  Alaska--Ketchikan
  • -  United States--Alaska--Ketchikan

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Daily
  • -  Began Sept. 22, 1915?
  • -  -v. 4, no. 164 (Apr. 30, 1919).
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 1, no. 2 (Sept. 23, 1915).
  • -  Alaska pioneer (Ketchikan, Alaska) (DLC)sn 94050063 (OCoLC)30833037
  • -  Ketchikan times (DLC)sn 94050064 (OCoLC)30833099

Medium

  • volumes

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn94050061

OCLC Number

  • 30832968

ISSN Number

  • 2771-246x

Preceding Titles

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Daily Progressive-Miner Ketchikan, Alaska -1919. (Ketchikan, AK), Jan. 1 1915. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn94050061/.

APA citation style:

(1915, January 1) The Daily Progressive-Miner Ketchikan, Alaska -1919. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn94050061/.

MLA citation style:

The Daily Progressive-Miner Ketchikan, Alaska -1919. (Ketchikan, AK) 1 Jan. 1915. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn94050061/.