Historians have referred to Ogden, Utah, as the graveyard of western journalism because of the short life expectancy of the dozens of newspapers that sprang up there after 1869. The completion of the transcontinental railroad that year quickly transformed the sleepy agricultural town into a bustling transportation hub. Newspapers came and went, vying for the thousands of potential readers arriving on the nine rail lines with terminals in the city. The Ogden Standard bucked the trend. Founded by Frank J. Cannon, the Standard first appeared on January 1, 1888, with its front page featuring a poem entitled “A Hymn to Progress.” When Cannon was elected to the U.S. Congress four years later, the paper’s business manager, William Glassman, took over day-to-day operations. He acquired the Standard outright in 1894 and quickly molded it into a promotional organ for his own political career- Glassman served three terms as mayor.

The paper also carried world and national news. When the Spanish American War erupted in 1898, the story occupied the Standard’s entire front page. Local news included articles about Utah’s booming mining industry, notes from the local police blotter, and such nuggets as the Christmas Eve 1907 account of a hapless man who accidentally killed his friend in a failed attempt to shoot his cowboy hat off with a pistol.

In 1920, the paper merged with the Morning Examiner, becoming the Ogden Standard-Examiner. Today, the Standard-Examiner is the third-largest daily in the state.