The Ketchikan Miner Archive

The Ketchikan Mining News was a weekly paper that first appeared on January 18, 1907. Evangeline Atwood and Lew Williams, Jr., in Bent Pins to Chains, write that the paper came about through a coalition of local saloonkeepers. They elaborated that when Ketchikan's population surpassed 1,000, the price of liquor licenses in town doubled. Many saloonkeepers were unhappy with the change and argued that the population was not that high. Walter S. Coutant, editor and proprietor of The Daily Miner and The Mining Journal, refused to endorse their arguments. In response, over half of the saloonkeepers in town pulled their ads from his paper and sponsored the creation of the The Ketchikan Mining News, with the former territorial governor, Alfred Swineford, as the editor.

Swineford announced that he had purchased the Daily Miner and Mining Journal from Coutant. He suspended the Mining Journal and combined it with his Ketchikan Mining News to create the weekly The Ketchikan Miner, while he continued to run The Daily Miner. Swineford stayed on as editor until September of 1908, when he retired. An editorial by new management on September 12, 1908, explained that "Failing health has compelled the hand of the honored former Governor Swineford to lay down the pen." W.C. Curtis took over as manager of the paper with L. A. Lucas as the editor.

Bert Howdeshell purchased The Daily Miner in 1909, becoming both manager and editor. Howdeshell wrote with far more metaphor and levity in his editorials than was common among other contemporaries. In one editorial on August 7, 1909, Howdeshell addressed those who complained about the rain in notoriously wet Southeast Alaska: "when the gray clouds obscure the sky's opaline tinted blue, care you not. You do not live in the skies. The sunshine that paints the rose in your cheek and gems the eye with diamonds, comes from within."

The Ketchikan Miner was sold to Richard Bushell, Jr., previously the editor of The Wrangell Sentinel, in 1911. Atwood and Williams, Jr., characterized Bushell as a member of the "Tory Press" because of his opposition to home rule for Alaska. They write that he was heavily opposed to statehood and supported absentee-owned businesses in Alaska that were opposed to home rule. Circulation was around 200 copies in November of 1912.

Jeffrey Rivardbought the Daily Miner 1915 and combined it with the Morning Mail and the weekly Progressive to create The Daily Progressive Miner. Rivard's other paper, The Progressive, continued as a weekly edition, replacing The Ketchikan Miner.