About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965
O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb. (1880-1965)

The Frontier

Frontier (NE) was a Republican newspaper published in O'Neill, Holt County, Nebraska, from 1880-1965, later merging with the Holt County Independent (O'Neill, Neb. : 1897) to become the Frontier and Holt County Independent. A north-central Nebraska town, O'Neill was founded and named for John O'Neill, an Irish immigrant and U.S. Civil War veteran. The town is popularly known as "The Irish Capitol of Nebraska," as anyone who attends the O'Neill Saint Patrick's Day festivities knows. Among its renowned citizens was Moses Kinkaid, sponsor of the 1904 Kinkaid Land Act that allowed homesteaders to claim 640 acres of ranchland unsuitable for farming in the western part of the state.

Initially, J.M.McDough edited and published the newspaper; subsequently, editors and publishers changed frequently. Frontier first came out on Thursdays with a subscription rate of $2.00 per year. Early issues were 30" x 41" with each issue running 8 pages. By the 1960s, Bill Richardson served as publisher; Bruce Rehberg was editor, and subscriptions for this weekly were $3.50 a year.

Unlike many papers in Nebraska, local news appeared on the Frontier's front pages throughout the paper's history. The articles often announced the people visiting the town or traveling out of town, as well as local business news. The latter ranged from "David Stannard installed an iceless fountain in his soft drink parlor and news stand" to business ads, such as "Interstate Power Co. sponsors celebration for Millionth Frigidaire!" Petty theft also made the front page, including a 1928 story about a crook using a hook to snag men's trousers through the transoms of the historic Golden Hotel. Of the five trousers snagged by the robber, one holding a set of car keys resulted in the loss of a Chrysler sedan. As the years passed, the Frontier's front pages covered county fairs, returning veterans, violent storms, cattle shows or sales, and court cases.

From the late 1930s through the end of WWII, international news about the war was in every issue. Following WWII, the paper quit reporting most international and national news—instead covering Nebraska and O'Neill news almost exclusively. A lot of the local and county news related to farms and farm equipment, with the occasional human-interest story, such as one in 1963 on "A Day in the Life of a Farm Girl." In the 1950s, two separate mottos appeared interchangeably under the flag— either "North-Central Nebraska's BIGGEST Newspaper" or "The Voice of the Beef Empire." In the 1960s, these mottos were combined, with the paper offering such disparate local stories as cattle rustling, rodeos, golden anniversaries, baseball, recipes, book clubs, and deaths.

Provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE