IT’S WIDELY KNOWN that the first newspaper west of the Mississippi River was the short-lived Oregon Spectator, which published its first issue on Feb. 5, 1846.

But that’s only true if you define “newspaper” very narrowly. In truth, there was an earlier publication that met every definition of a newspaper but one ... specifically, it was “printed” by hand, every copy, with pen and ink — longhand. No printing press was involved.

This early newspaper was called the Flumgudgeon Gazette and Bumble Bee Budget, and it first appeared in the spring of 1844 just in time for the first legislative council of the Oregon Provisional Government. Its editor identified himself only as “The Curl-Tail Coon,” and it’s not entirely clear if that was just for fun, or for protection from revenge by those whose feathers he ruffled in its pages.

It was a tri-weekly, with a press run of roughly 12 copies (written out longhand, remember, and with original art depicting its author hand-drawn individually on the front page of each by a friend of the editor, a German artist named Springer).

Now, “Flumgudgeon Gazette and Bumble Bee Budget” is a very long name, so to save time we are going to refer to it by a shortened version, in the spirit of Windy City residents who call their daily “The Trib” instead of “The Chicago Tribune” or Stumptowners calling theirs “The Big O” instead of — well, “The Oregonian,” of course ...  In the present case, we’re going with “The Gudge.”

The Gudge was a mercilessly satirical publication. Its motto, printed prominently on the front page of every copy beneath the flag, read “A Newspaper of the Salamagundi Order and Devoted to Scratching and Stinging the Follies of the Age.” Above that appeared a drawing, by Herr Springer, of the Curltail Coon himself, with the caption “Don’t stroke us backwards! There is enough of villainy going on to raise our bristles without that!”

If the editor was pseudonymous, so were the legislators he lampooned — which makes it a bit hard to dope out who was who in the little bit of surviving text we have from the Aug. 20, 1845, issue. Historian Lawrence Powell suggests that “The Big Brass Gun” may have been Jesse Applegate’s nickname, but confesses himself baffled as to who “The Blueback Terrapin” was. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2412a1007a.flumgudgeon-gazette-first-newspaper-handwritten.678.078.html)