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When it began publication 41 years ago next week no one really expected the Salt Flat News, Wendover first newspaper to be a huge success, at least not right away. And five years and 21 issues later it did indeed fold but while the scrappy publication never really got off the ground it has found a different kind of fame as one of the most sought after newspaper collector’s items in the country.
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With even fair copies retailing for $40 and mint condition editions fetching $800 or more on ebay or other internet auction sites the sun is again rising on the little paper that proudly proclaimed it was the only publication the “gave a damn about the Salt Flats and Wendover”.
Actually doing a paper about Wendover was my second choice,” said founding editor Richard Goldberger. “I wanted to do one about Park City first. “But I pitched the idea about the Salt Flats to George Odiorne the dean of business at the University of Utah
He handed me a check for $5,000 and told me to run with it.”
The rest as Goldberger said in an interview with the High Desert Advocate Wednesday was history.
Well at least five years worth of history.
“I wanted to do something visually exciting,” Goldberger now 67 said. “And look even now it is a beautiful piece of work.”
And work it was putting together a photo intensive tabloid was no mean feat back in the early 1970’s. The printing industry technology was still mostly in the era of hot lead and lino type. Photographs had to be developed from film and than reproduced into dot matrix images. Stories had to be written and rewritten edited and then rewritten on news format and then pasted up, photographed developed again and only then sent to the press for printing.
In terms of manpower and man hours what took 20 full time workers in 1970 takes just one man today.
“The Salt Flat news was a labor of love,” Goldberger added. “It was sad when we had to close but business is business.”
According to Goldberger the reason for the failure was simple.
“A couple of years into it, Jim Smith bought into it and became the majority stockholder,” he explained. “Then he backed out of his contract and the whole thing went bust.”
But in closure there was a silver lining a little late but silver none the less. Partly because of its quality and partly because of its rarity, old editions of the Salt Flat news now go for at least $40 among collectors an increase of 1,600 percent from the 25¢ cover price.
“It really does my heart good to see other people place value on something that meant so much to me.” Goldberger added.
Goldberger is now managing editor of the FNA News Agency based in salt Lake City.