THE EARLIEST AMATEUR JOURNALIST in Nebraska was Clement C. Chase, the first Official Editor of the National A.P.A., who at the age of ten began the publication, in Omaha, of his Excelsior, which he afterwards turned into a professional newspaper which became one of the foremost journals of the West. This was in 1870.
In Kenesau in 1874 the Home Times was published by George and Mary Williams. A few years later Omaha became a leading amateur center. In 1876 William W. Bartlett was publishing All Sorts, and Charles T. Bunce the Jolly Joker. The next year Charles S. Elgutter published the Inland Amateur, and later the Satirist. Elgutter gained considerable prominence as a poet. In 1879 came the Omaha Chief, edited by William M. Cummings, and the Little Sioux, Samuel R. Hall, editor. Years later Omaha sent out a fine magazine called the Interpolitan, published in 1897 by the Jessen Brothers, and in 1912 Hubert A. Reading sent forth the Emissary.
Outside of Omaha, in Nebraska City, George A. Seaman published the Western Amateur in 1876, and George N. Sroat the Phunny Phellow in 1881. Another leading journal was the Monitor, edited by Ed J. Nock, of Alma, in 1887, while the same year Frank D. Woollen, the poet, issued Etchings from there.
Later, in 1932, O. W. Hinrichs, of Arapahoe, published a very neat and interesting little Journal called Goldenrod, and in Holdrege, Charles F. Copeland issued the Headlight.