A Brief History of Kaysville in the News

Kaysville has a rich history of news appearing in newspapers, with the earliest known printed news article dating back to January 2, 1856, in the Deseret News. These articles covered many topics, including social activities, business, weather, crops, deaths, and near-death mishaps. You can find some of these articles on our website, and we are constantly adding more to make it easier to search for family names and locations.

The most prolific news articles appeared under the name “Kaysville Kinks,” which first appeared in the Salt Lake Herald Republican on July 28, 1889, under the “Territorial Topics” section. These articles were listed alphabetically, with the Kaysville Kinks nestled between “Heber Happenings” and “Manti Matters.” The Kaysville Kinks were published sporadically in the early days, presumably when noteworthy news dictated or when the allotted newspaper space had passed through the alphabet and back to the letter “K.”

The Salt Lake Herald Republican published regular Kaysville Kinks articles until December 7, 1892. Not to be outdone, the Ogden Daily Standard published its first “Kaysville Kinks” article on October 26, 1890, and again the following week on November 2, 1890. The Ogden paper went on hiatus for a year until they published their final two Kaysville Kinks articles on December 12, 1891, and January 10, 1892, respectively.

Exactly 8 days after the Salt Lake Herald Republican ended its Kaysville Kinks articles, they re-appeared in the Davis County Clipper. The “Clipper” was the most prolific publisher of Kaysville Kinks, amassing 1,556 articles until they finally ceased on or about June 13, 1930. The Kaysville Kinks were published in approximately 22 different publications, including the Davis County Clipper, Salt Lake Tribune, Morgan Post, Deseret News, Ogden Standard-Examiner, and the Weekly Reflex.

We have strived to keep the wording, spelling, and punctuation as it appeared in the original articles, which is no small task considering today’s spell-checkers and grammar-checking solutions. We hope you enjoy reading some of the local history found in the articles. If you read enough, you may even encounter the comical. Check out the July 1, 1890 article, which reports:

“In view of the fact that Ogden and Salt Lake are to have such great attractions, the people of Kaysville have concluded not to celebrate the Fourth of July.”

We hope you enjoy learning more about our local history, and many of the names and locations that had something to do with it.