Relying on Daniel Boorstin's argument that the newspaper was at least one of the first institutions in a frontier community, a study examined the 1880 United States Census of eight western territories to determine the number of newspapers and the ratio of newspapers to population in frontier counties. Three groups were examined: counties that had at least one newspaper, counties with one or more relatively new (two years old or less) newspapers, and counties that had at least one newspaper that was more than two years old. Figures suggested that population was important to a newspaper, with old newspaper counties offering a larger population base than was found in new newspaper counties, but that the composition of that population made little difference. The relative wealth of a county, however, was important, with the old newspaper counties being clearly richer than those where newspapers were a recent arrival. The data suggest that when their newspapers were established, these counties already had solid population bases for their time and place. Another interesting point was that more than half of the 165 counties in the territories did not have newspapers. Evidence shows that, after considering total population, economics of a county were more significant than demographics in terms of newspaper establishment. (HOD)