Lewiston Orchards Life Newsletter

A newsletter documenting daily life in Lewiston Orchards, Idaho (1912-1914)

Contents: About Lewiston Orchards Life Newsletter | Tech

About Lewiston Orchards Life Newsletter

An exponent of progressive horticulture and the successful rural community

Lewiston Orchards Life was a neighborhood newsletter published in Lewiston, Idaho during the early 1900s that covered the horticultural and residential events of those living in Lewiston Orchards. Special Collection & Archives at the University of Idaho Library holds twenty-six issues as part of their Day-Northwest Collection.

Lewiston Orchards, a planned agricultural community just south of Lewiston, Idaho, initially began to be developed in 1906. Small tracts of land were divided up to enable the planting of orchards and other small crops set amongst a residential setting. Given an abundance of water provided by a concurrent irrigation project and an idyllic climate, the initial orchard plantings grew well and many people moved to the new location.

One such resident, H.H.S. Rowell, was highly involved with the community and infrastructure. He used his experience as a horticulturist in his home state of Minnesota and his publishing experience editing various newspapers and writing articles on horticultural techniques and annual expos to help develop the Lewiston Orchards Life Publishing Company, which published the Lewiston Orchards Life newsletter once a month from June 1912 to June 1914. Walter S. Thornber and Charles A. Cole, renowned horticultural experts, both co-edited Lewiston Orchards Life and wrote articles discussing local developments regarding the care of fruit trees and to provide tips and tricks for gardening.

The newsletter also discussed the social goings on of the community, giving notes on club meetings and visitors to the region, updates on infrastructure projects, and jokes and other pieces of interest commonly found in newspapers of the day.

Technical Credits - CollectionBuilder

This digital collection is built with CollectionBuilder, an open source framework for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that is developed by faculty librarians at the University of Idaho Library following the Lib-Static methodology.

Using the CollectionBuilder-CSV template and the static website generator Jekyll, this project creates an engaging interface to explore driven by metadata.

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