The Colorado Historical Society often gets questions concerning the first edition of the Rocky Mountain News, published on April 23, 1859. As an aid to our patrons, we would like to reprint a portion of an article that appeared in Colorado Heritage News written by historian Maxine Benson that explains how to determine a genuine first edition from subsequent reprints:

"According to Robert Perkin, a long-time Denver Rocky Mountain News writer and author of the classic account of the paper The First Hundred Years, only about five hundred copies of Volume 1 Number 1 were printed. However, it has been reprinted often, and the facsimiles are most often presented to dealers or curators as the "real thing." To determine if you have a genuine copy of the April 23, 1859 issue of the Rocky Mountain News, measure it: the originals in the collections of the Colorado Historical Society measure 15 15/16" by 22", larger than the reprints described below. Next, check the quality of the paper and printing. These admittedly are subjective factors to analyze, but if the paper is brittle and yellowed and the printing is blurred, you have conformation that the newspaper was printed later than 1859.

A brief and by no means exhaustive survey of the reprints that have been collected turned up the following examples in the Colorado Historical Society and the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library:

1. Size 15.25 " by 20.75 "; bound with the Rocky Mountain News Golden Jubilee Number, April 23, 1909; otherwise unmarked.
2. Size 15.25" by 20.75"; paper and printing quality very poor (undated).

3.) Size 15.75" by 21.375"; first page only; labeled "This replica of the first Rocky Mountain News is a souvenir from Industrial Federal Savings on their 68th anniversary, April 1959."