Border newspaper during Prohibition the newest addition to the Arizona Memory Project

PHOENIX – Published as the Douglas Daily Dispatch in 1903, this community newspaper provided international and national news coverage, in addition to political and community news. Other sections included mining news, poetry, cartoons, editorials from other Arizona newspapers, and information on local entertainment. The newspaper’s title changed throughout the years before becoming the Douglas Dispatch in the early 70s, as it’s known today.

“The Douglas Daily Dispatch was published along the Arizona/Mexico border,” said Sativa Peterson, National Digital Newspaper Program grant project director and news content program manager for the State of Arizona Research Library. “Appearing above the newspaper’s masthead was the motto, Douglas Is the Second Largest City on the Southern United States Border and the Gateway to Sonora, the Treasure House of Mexico. The years digitized chronicle southern Arizona’s shifting attitudes toward national prohibition.”

This is one of 40 newspaper titles from communities around Arizona that were digitized by the Arizona State Library in partnership with the University of Arizona Libraries, thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities and Library of Congress’ National Digital Newspaper Program. Issues from 1926 to 1928 of the Douglas Daily Dispatch will be available on the Arizona Memory Project indefinitely and can be viewed for free on any digital device at https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/digital/collection/dddispatch.

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