humorists

Journalist Merris Barrow arrived in Douglas, Wyo., in 1886 to treat readers to a newspaper “written to be read”—Bill Barlow’s Budget. It needled the powerful and tickled its readers, all while boosting the town. Barrow’s monthly Sagebrush Philosophy circulated nationwide. He died in 1910, just 53 years old.

Bill Nye, first-rank humorist and 1880s editor of the Laramie Boomerang, tickled the funny bones of readers for decades and for a time became as well known, thanks to national speaking tours, as his contemporary Mark Twain.