Colorado
Historic Newspapers Collection
Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection
The Story So Far...
In 2019 the High Plains Library District purchased the property at 5th st. and 8th ave. in downtown Greeley, the building previously occupied by The Greeley Tribune.
As part of this acquisition, HPLD also acquired the Greeley Tribune archive, including some of the photo archive, and printed and bound issues of The Greeley Tribune dating back to the late 19th century, which are currently stored in a literal vault at HPLD’s Administration building.
The Work
HPLD is working with The Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection to begin digitizing the physical copies of The Greeley Tribune. This process will help preserve the oldest and most fragile copies of the newspaper while increasing their accessibility to researchers and readers.
Funding for this project is made possible by the High Plains Library District, a Support Program Award, and the National Digital Newspaper Program.
CHNC
The collection is an exciting and useful resource for researchers, teachers, and anyone who wants to see what life was like in the past.
CHNC facilitates the digitization of Colorado newspapers and provides hosting for the digital files on the web.
Genealogists from all over can use these newspapers to search for useful records like births, deaths, marriages, criminal activity, and other items that help them locate and learn more about their ancestors.
Teachers can encourage their students to use CHNC to find primary sources for projects and papers.
Researchers can get a better feel for culture, ways of life, and other ephemeral aspects of daily life through these newspapers, which are full scans of every page and include things like advertisements, want ads, and other items that have previously been considered unimportant.
Search
Tips
General Topics
Remember that newspapers didn’t always refer to topics as we would today. For example the Sand Creek Massacre will likely be reported as the Battle of Sand Creek or simply Sand Creek.
People
First names were seldom used for married women. Typically, the husband’s first name was used. Also, abbreviations were sometimes used for first names of men and women.
Births, Deaths, Marriages
Consider searching for a range of dates, as the event may not have been published the day it happened. Modern terms like “Obituaries” or “Announcements” may not have been used in some newspapers. Try using words like death, funeral, died, marriage, and wedding.
For more search tips, check out the help pages at www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/forum/
Citing Articles
To credit the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection as a source for a paper, article, or book, please include the publication title, location, date of publication, its URL, and other relevant information.
Example:
Greeley Daily Tribune (Greeley, CO), 6 December, 1922, p. 3. Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. Colorado State Library.
Please contact CHNC for more information or if you would like to know more about how you can add your community’s history to the collection.
Leigh Jeremias
Digital Collections Consultant
Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection
Colorado State Library
ljeremias@coloradovirtuallibrary.org
303.335.0709
