The Holbrook News Archive

The Holbrook News commenced publication in 1909 in Holbrook, Arizona, with Sidney Sapp serving as the paper’s first editor.  Initially a Republican platform, the paper became Democratic in 1929 and later changed again to Independent according to Estelle Lutrell’s Newspapers and Periodicals of Arizona: 1859-1911. In his Those Old Yellow Dog Days:  Frontier Journalism in Arizona:  1859-1912, author William H. Lyon quotes Sapp’s axiom for the growth of Holbrook: “Let us all boost one more year and then see the results.  It [Holbrook] will be a town of 1,000 people, another railroad, the largest sawmills in Arizona and the wealthiest county in our grand state.  BOOST.” 

The Holbrook News continued with several editor and title changes. Subsequent editors of the paper included George M. Braxton from 1915 until August 8, 1919, followed by his wife, from August 15, 1919, until June 4, 1920.  Oil was the new economic boon for Holbrook at this time, and the News and other local papers devoted plenty of space to it. When the Hopi Oil Company “spudded in the first well,” the Holbrook News was there to cover it.  Many new oil companies were emerging, and too much publicity became a challenge that the newspapers had to address.  With efforts and money aimed at the war in Europe, journalists had to be cautious not to over promote the current state of petrol in Holbrook.  On November 22,1918, the Holbrook News reported, “Arizona has had one experience with fake oil promoters and unscrupulous managers…misrepresentations either as to development, number of companies operating, the prospects, and the finding of oil are damaging and non-productive of any good.”  After many dashed hopes and misbegotten ventures over the next few years, the oil boom in Holbrook proved in fact to be a bust, as several of the newly formed companies fell into lawsuits and went bankrupt.

The paper was renamed the Holbrook Tribune in 1918 and, finally, the Holbrook Tribune-News on February 16, 1923, under Editor V. P. Richards.