There's now more Davis County news on the Clipper's Web site than ever before. But in this case, we're talking about old news -- some of it from more than 80 years ago. This week, the University of Utah is adding another dozen or so years of historic Davis County Clipper issues to its Utah Digital Newspapers Web site. By the time you read this, these new pages should be available via your home computer. If not, they will be within a day or two.

We have provided access to the last remaining copies of early Clipper issues so they could be digitized under the direction of the University of Utah library.

Once the recently scanned pages become operational, all issues between 1925 and 1938 may be read online. This will provide unprecedented public access to events that shaped the history of Davis County.

This project began about two years ago when agreements were made to digitize the Clipper's earliest editions published between 1892 and 1924. But we didn't want to stop there and this year authorized the digitization of all issues through 1938. Efforts are even in the works to bring the online archive current through the end of World War II.

Our goal is to one day get all back issues of the Clipper online, the timing of which will depend on grants and other funding for this mammoth project in which the state is seeking to digitize all Utah historic newspapers.

For now, the new set of Clipper issues online will enable readers to find out what was going on in Davis County during the height of the Prohibition era and at the time of the infamous stock market crash of 1929. The pages also reveal the conditions in Davis County as the nation sank into the Great Depression and then had to contend with the military build-up in Germany and Italy that eventually resulted in World War II.

To get access to this information, all that's necessary is for Clipper readers to follow a simple three-step process:

1. Go the Clipper's Web site (www. davisclipper.com) and click on the link called "Historic Archives." It's in the "News" section near the top of the left hand column. That will take readers to the main screen for Clipper historic archives (top photo).

2. There is more than one way to conduct a search, but a simple way is to select a year by choosing the drop-down menu just above the image of the state of Utah (see middle photo). That will take readers to a list of all issues published during the specified year.

3. Then select the specific issue desired. The screen will display an image of the front page and will let readers browse through the rest of the pages. For our example, we have chosen Sept. 21, 1892, which is today's exact date 114 years ago. You can do the same if you'd like to find out what was happening on a specific date in 1925, 1930 or any other year between 1892 and 1938.

We encourage readers to give this a try. It's amazing what we can learn about the early events that shaped the Davis County of today.

-- Rolf D. Koecher