Owyhee Nugget Print Shop

Step back in time to when the newspaper was setup and printed by hand. The Owyhee Nugget has roots in the county dating back 150 years.

We have items dating back to 1865, 1912, 1935, 1950. It began on August 19, 1865, in Ruby City,  by brothers Joe and John Wasson. One year later in August of 1866 the Owyhee Avalanche moved to Silver City.

The Owyhee Avalanche transitioned to the Daily Avalanche in 1875, making the Idaho Territory’s first daily newspaper, enabled by telegraph news from Winnemucca, Nevada, at a $300 monthly cost.  Lem York, founder of the DeLemar Nugget, renamed the Daily Avalanche back to the Owyhee Avalanche on August 20, 1897. Its fate after York is unclear. On January 6, 1905, the Silver City Nugget bought the Owyhee Avalanche, discontinued its publication, and renamed itself The Owyhee Nugget.

By 1916, the Nugget entered a long period of stable ownership under Charles Pascoe. Pascoe ran the paper until 1936, when poor health forced him to lease it to Rodney A. Hawes. Three years later, Hawes and his wife, Leona, purchased the Nugget. Rodney went on to modernize the print shop and purchased the first linotype in the county, which is once again running at the museum.

 In 1940, the paper moved to the town of Marsing. Hawes published the Nugget until 1982, when it was sold to Mick and Kyle Hodges. Joe Aman purchased the Nugget in 1984 and combined it with the Owyhee Chronicle to form a new paper, the Owyhee Avalanche, which publishes to this day.