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Brief History of
Farnam Newspaper


We have located three copies of the first paper printed at Farnam, The Public Press, published by D. O. MaGoun. The copies belong to Mrs. Frank Hawkenbery, Mrs. E. W. Crossgrove and Mrs. J. V. Dawson. The following article taken from the first issue of the Public Press, Dec. 16, 1886 explains the reason for the appearance of the paper here at that time:

BENEFIT OF "GETTING LEFT"

What a disappointment it is to "get left!" How it cuts one to the very core; yea, verily, to the very marrow! Oh, how forsaken, postponed, dejected, lonesome and even weak it makes one feel!
Recently the publisher of the Press was in a strange town, waiting for a train to take him to a place 17 miles off, which it was very important he should reach as soon as
possible. Being misinformed about the cars' departure "twenty minutes too late" fell on his ears as appalingly as if it were twenty hours and the flying train was 120 miles away.
But even "getting left" like an ill wind that blows some one some good, sometimes leads to results more beneficial and happy than would have been realized if the traveler had gone with the train, or in other ways the disappointed one had not got left. If he had gone ahead he might have got left as to the better things he afterward found behind. Though the writer was forced to spend an afternoon at Edgar, lately — which seemed to him, just after the train left him would be a very dreary and tedious one — he found out later that the very man he was anxious to see at the town ahead had also got left, and that he could see him without going.
We are here in Farnam because we "got left" at Moorefield on what we expected here — and we believe it is a benefit to us that the Public Press is in this town instead of with our western neighbor.
1886 1936

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Web Publisher: Weldon Hoppe
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