Publication History:

Place of Publication:  Panguitch, Garfield County, Utah (1878? 1880?-1884)

Frequency:  Irregular, “when the spirit moved”

Volume and Issue Data:  Started 1878 or 1879 and published until about 1884

Size and Format:  8 x 10 inches, four pages

Editor/Publisher:  John M. Dunning, editor and publisher; James T. Daly, Sr., correspondent or writer

Title Changes and Continuation:  Garfield County News, The Recorder, The Register

General Description & Notes:

The paper was first called the Cactus, but the name was changed, possibly, to the Garfield County News, The Recorder, and/or The Register.  The paper was not issued regularly but “when the spirit moved.”

According to Alter, editor Dunning was said to have been a humorist and prepared his own jokes for fillers.  Many of his poems and other writings also appeared in the Cactus.  Says Alter, “It may have been a manuscript, pen-and-ink newspaper.”

Alter notes that “the Manti Home Sentinel mentions March 26, 1886 as being: ‘among our latest exchanges:’ though the echang practice was so universal it is more than likely the Register was just beginning when it received this notice.”

According Lucy Hatch, a member of the Panguitch Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Dunning published the first newspaper in the town “from about 1880 to 1884” and that Daly was a correspondent or writer.

Information Sources:

Bibliography:  J. Cecil Alter,  Early Utah Journalism (Salt Lake City:  Utah Historical Society, 1938), p. 180

Locations:  No issues located

See also the Panguitch Register