Nowadays, news can spread across the nation and around the world in just minutes, even seconds. That was not the case in 1865.

When President Lincoln died April 15 of that year after being shot, readers of the Olympia-based Washington Standard didn’t see the story (right) about Lincoln’s death until a week later, in its April 22 edition.  The State Library has a copy of the paper’s historic edition thanks to the Chronicling America program that makes historic newspapers available in digital form.

Even though the Washington Standard might not run news of Lincoln’s assassination until a week later, it doesn’t mean that word hadn’t spread to Olympia and other parts of Washington by then. For instance, news of Lincoln’s death reached Seattle by telegraph that afternoon.