The Western Livestock Journal is almost 100 years old. Like you, we value our historic legacy and want to safeguard it. Most of our publication’s physical history is housed at the Colorado State University (CSU) Library’s Agricultural and Natural Resources Archive.
Our archivist partners at CSU are working to digitize several old agricultural publications, including WLJ. This would eventually make all of WLJ’s print history available and searchable to the public online. However, their existing physical records are not complete. We hope you can help with that.
Many readers have told us they have been subscribed with us for decades. Some have even written us wonderful notes on their renewal receipts, telling us how long WLJ has been a part of their lives. Those notes make our days that much better—thank you!
One of my most beloved reader’s letters is pinned to my bulletin board. It is from a then 90-year-old reader who renewed her subscription for three years. She called WLJ “my oldest best friend.”
“Each issue is a treasure in our family,” she said. “I have copies of the Western Livestock Journal going back to 1936.”
We’re hoping you or your family might have old copies of WLJ too, and that you might be willing to lend or donate them to the CSU archival effort.
Our history of names
In our older days, we had a lot of names and publications. At the beginning in 1922, we had the weekly Farm and Ranch Market Journal. This changed to the more familiar Western Livestock Journal in 1934.
We branched out into two weekly publications in 1959; the original Los Angeles-based edition became the “Pacific Slope” (PS) edition, and the new Denver-based edition became the “Mountain and Plains” (MP) edition. These names evolved into the “Pacific Coast” and “Mountain, Plains and Southwest” editions respectively. In 1973, the names again changed to the “Western” and “Central” editions respectively.
In the late-1980s, we merged the two weekly editions back into one under the simple heading of Western Livestock Journal.
In the past, we also had monthly magazines. These more consistently ran under the title of Western Livestock Journal, though there were some periods where the magazines had regional editions like the weekly newspapers.
Holes in the record
According to CSU Archivist Linda Meyer, the following is a list of issues they are missing:
Weekly newsletters/publications:
- October 1923-September 1926 (Farm and Ranch Market Journal)
- May 1930-December 1933 (Farm and Ranch Market Journal)
- 1937-1939 (undetailed sporadic issues missing)
- 1945
- 1955
- 1964 (Mountain and Plains edition)
- 1969 (Pacific Slope edition)
- 1970 (Both editions)
- 1971 (Pacific Slope edition)
- 1975-1976 (Western edition)
- 1980 (Central edition)
- 1981 (both editions)
- 1984 (Western edition)
- 1985-1986 (both editions)
- 1990
Monthly publications:
- 1955 (Pacific Slope edition)
- 1965 (Pacific Slope edition)
- 1967 (Mountain and Plains edition)
- 1971-1972 (Pacific Slope edition)
If you have some of these missing issues and are willing to loan or donate them to the archival effort, please contact Meyer to verify them. She can be reached at 970-491-4692 or Linda.Meyer@ColoState.edu. She will give you mailing instructions. Loaned copies will be returned if requested.
Thank you all for any help you can be in preserving the history of the Western Livestock Journal. — Kerry Halladay, WLJ managing editor
