One of the greatest assets for a frontier town, was to have its own newspaper. It was in fact, a defacto chamber of commerce extolling the virtues of the new upcoming community.

Amedee, the railroad town on the east side of Honey Lake, could even boast its own newspaper the Amedee Geyser. S.N. Griffith one of the original promoters of the town was able to entice 19-year old, Henry A. “Hal” Lemmon to relocate from nearby Sierra Valley where he was publishing the Mountain Mirror. On March 30, 1892 the Amedee Geyser made its debut. The four-page newspaper, common for the era, was quite informative from the exchanges published elsewhere.  There is only one known surviving copy, which is in private hands.

The good times at Amedee, and across the nation would not last long due to the financial panic of 1893. On September 28, 1893, Lemmon published the last issue with the following statement: “We have nothing to say–we have done the best we could. We shall continue residence in Amedee and when our patrons have more, we can give them a newspaper worth the subscription price, the paper will appear again. ”

Lemmon had hope to revive the newspaper the following month, but that did not transpire.  He moved on to bigger things and at the time of his death in 1947 he was President of the Sierra Pacific Power Company in Reno, Nevada.

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