Salt Flat News--Wendover's Picture Paper
[Utah] Salt Flat News--Wendover's Picture Paper--The Only Paper in the World That Gives a Damn About What Happens on the Salt Flats
20 issues of the Salt Flat News. Light toning. Remarkably clean set. Most issues measure 11.5 x 16.5 inches although trim size varied throughout the life of the publication, 1970-1975. All issues have previous horizontal fold. No address labels. Very good to fine condition. Three bound sets in very good condition; bottom corners of the first set have light damage to the first 4 pages, not affecting any text. Last page of the third bound set is moderately torn and wrinkled--no content loss.
21 issues of the Salt Flat News, an offbeat, semi-serious avant-garde publication were produced between 1970 and 1975 on an irregular basis. The project was the brainchild of Richard Goldberger and Richard Menzies, and offered news and photographs of the people and happenings of the Bonneville Salt Flats and West Desert. Not much happens in the West Desert but they describe their paper as "The only paper in the world that gives a damn about what happens on the Salt Flats."
The Salt Flat News was an eclectic and offbeat regional paper out of the west desert of Utah, containing articles and photos of events related to the Bonneville Salt Flats. The brainchild of Richard Menzies and Richard Goldberger, twenty-one issues of the paper were printed from 1970 to 1975.
The west has been littered with underground, funky zines and newspapers, especially in the 1960's and 70's. Just in Utah alone we had the Electric Newspaper, The Pillar of Salt, The Seventh East Press, The Street Paper, plus a handful of 'unofficial' college newspapers. Moab (our hometown) had the "Stinkin' Desert Gazette" and Jim Stiles' Canyon Country Zephyr still is published, albeit only on-line.
This set is missing the rare Vol. 1 No. 2 which supposedly was hoarded by the cover model. Even publisher Richard Menzies, in correspondence (copy included) with a Princeton University Special Collections Curator in 1974, claimed that he was missing Vol. 1 No. 2 in his personal collection. Fortunately, this set includes scans of ALL issues bound into three 17 x 11-inch sets.
Despite the 'underground feel' to the Salt Flat News, papers still needed ad revenue and many mainstream Wendover and Salt Lake City business ads are found throughout the issues. The last seven issues include full-page ads on the back cover from Jim's Casino and Saloon in West Wendover, Nevada. The banner lists Wendover Utah/Nevada as its publication locale. The quirk of a little desert town split by a state line with a quiet little Mormon town on the east while gawdy gambling casinos and strip clubs reside in West Wendover.
The editors explain in Volume One, Number One, "over this 10,000 square mile area with a population of less than 4,000, there's news--news about nothingness...ironically, there are found no boring people in Wendover, which may be the understatement of this decade, give or take a year."
7 institutions hold at least partial sets of this newspaper as of June 2023. We know the Princeton set is complete. Item #507
Price: $950.00