Attention newspaper junkies and history buffs: I received this news release today and thought you might be interested. Here’s the scoop:

OLYMPIA – The Colfax Gazette and Pullman Herald are among eight newspapers and more than 42,000 historic newspaper pages recently contributed to Chronicling America by the Washington State Library. Chronicling America is a project of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.

People can read and research issues from the Colfax Gazette, Pullman Herald and other newspapers around Washington and the United States for free at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov.

The Colfax Gazette, called the “official paper of Whitman County,” began in 1893 by Palouse Gazette staff writer Ivan Chase. Chase purchased the Palouse Gazette and changed the name of the paper. Since then, the Colfax Gazette has changed hands and names a few times throughout the years, and is known today as the Whitman County Gazette.

The Pullman Herald was founded in 1888 by Thomas Neill and J. J. Sargent, who lobbied aggressively on the town’s behalf as it steadily grew. The newspaper co-sponsored Pullman’s first oil street lights in 1890, celebrated the town’s water resources (dubbing Pullman “The Artesian City,”), and pushed for the opening of a branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Thomas Neill and other early residents persistently lobbied the Legislature to locate the Washington Agricultural College (now Washington State University) in Pullman, thus helping to ensure the long-term viability of the community. The newspaper was published for over 100 years before it ceased publication in 1989.

“These historic newspapers are a rich resource for historians, genealogists and other researchers,” said State Librarian Jan Walsh. “They provide names, dates, images and tell the story of a community or region in such a comprehensive way. They bring local history alive.”

Chronicling America provides free and open access to over 1.7 million full-text searchable pages from 212 titles published between 1880 and 1922 in 15 states and the District of Columbia. More pages from other newspapers around Washington State will be periodically uploaded throughout 2010 as part of the Washington State Library’s National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) grant.

“It’s exciting to have this collection in Chronicling America. It will give researchers the ability to search across multiple collections of newspapers from various states at once,” said Deputy State Librarian Marlys Rudeen.

Part of the mission and purpose of the Washington State Library is to collect, preserve and make accessible to Washingtonians materials on the government, history, culture and natural resources of the state. Read more about the State Library.

Newspapers from Washington State currently included in Chronicling America are the Colfax Gazette, 1900-1912; Colville Examiner, 1907-1922; (Everett) Commonwealth, 1911-1914; Leavenworth Echo, 1904-1922; Pullman Herald, 1888-1893, 1907-1922; (Yakima) The Ranch, 1902-1914; Seattle Republican, 1903-1913; and Washington Farmer, June 15, 1914.

For more information about Chronicling America, contact Laura Robinson, Washington’s National Digital Newspaper Program manager, at laura.robinson@sos.wa.gov or (360) 570-5568.

The Washington State Library is a division of the Office of Secretary of State. You can visit the library’s web site at www.sos.wa.gov/library .

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