"The Golden Age" Idaho's First Newspaper A.S. Gould, a pro-Union activist, published the first issue of The Golden Age on 2 August 1862. People longed for the news, paying up to $2.50 for a single issue of a California newspaper.  The first issue was produced from a handpress in an old office on Third Street in the historic district of Lewiston ID and was dominated by treaty negotiations with the Ni-Mii-Puu (Nez Perce). The copy shown here, one of the oldest known original copies, was found in a bundle of old newspapers in a barn near New Haven CT in the 1920's. A New Haven book dealer got possession of it. Research efforts of the Idaho Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution were rewarded when the document finally made its way into the collection of Lewiston State Normal School (now Lewis-Clark State College). The Golden Age was published each Saturday and was a small, four-page, six-column newspaper. The motto "Je maintiendrai le droit" can be translated as "I shall maintain the right." Published from 1862 - 1865, The Golden Age was an important link to the outside world. Lloyd Magruder's name would be carried by even San Francisco newspapers within a year --- after his murder and the capture of his assailants by Hill Beachey, the proprietor of The Luna House, an ad for which can be seen in the photo of the newspaper below. See the site "Historical Snapshots" for a photograph of The Luna House. A later editor, Alonzo Leland, went on publish other Lewiston newspapers, including The Lewiston Journal, The Signal and The Teller.     Images courtesy of the Jenifer Junior High School Library, where the original document was held until donated to the Nez Perce County Historical Society.