The Fallon Standard Archive

The future site of Fallon, Nevada was a rest stop on the California Trail. Its open land eventually attracted Michael Fallon who established a cattle ranch there in the early 1890s. In 1896, Fallon established a post office on his ranch, giving the future town a name. In 1901, Fallon sold the ranch to Warren Williams, the state senator from Churchill County. The next year, Williams introduced a bill in the state senate to move the county seat from Stillwater to Fallon. The bill passed and Senator Williams donated a lot for a new courthouse. The construction of the courthouse set off a building boom in Fallon. The construction of the irrigation canals brought hundreds of laborers into the region and filled the newly saloon-festooned streets of Fallon.

Among the people flocking to Fallon were a trio of newspaper journalists: Bert Hansen from the Tonopah Bonanza, Fred Fairbanks from the Yerington Times, and Leslie Smaill, a young reporter from Carson City whose resume included newspapers in San Francisco, Tonopah, and Reno. The first issue of the Churchill Standard was issued on December 19, 1903 under the aegis of the Standard Publishing Company. The Tonopah Bonanza saluted the new paper and their former colleague, "The Churchill Standard, a five-column paper, published at Fallon, Churchill county, is upon our table. It is a newsy and neat paper and the BONANZA hopes the good people of Churchill County will give the Standard liberal financial support."

Hansen and Fairbanks soon left the partnership, and Fairbanks returned to the Yerington Times. The remaining partner, Leslie Smaill, struggled to keep the paper going until 1905 when he sold it to William C. Black. Black, an abrasive and opinionated editor, also struggled. Later that year, Black announced that he had bought out "outside interests" and was now the paper's sole proprietor and editor. According to the Carson City Appeal, "In his editorial announcement of the same he [Black] gives a few of the residents of the town of Fallon and some of the officials a small sized curtain lecture and on which they will be pleased to forget, and have others forget as soon as possible."

In 1908, Black sold the Standard to A.P. Bettersworth of the rival Churchill County Eagle, who changed the name to the Churchill County Standard. In 1909, William Black again purchased the paper, which he ran until his retirement in 1915 when he sold the Standard to Ernest L. Bingham. Members of the Bingham family ran the paper until 1926 (changing the paper's name to the Fallon Standard in 1920) when Claude H. Smith bought a half-interest and took over as editor; he ran the paper until his death in 1957. In 1958, William J. Carey of the Fallon Eagle purchased the Standard, merging the two papers as the Eagle-Standard under which names it continues to be published.