Mark Twain Museum

This museum is closed permanently.

Mark Twain Museum and its collection

The Territorial Enterprise , founded by William Jernegan and Alfred James on December 18, 1858, was a newspaper published in Virginia City , Nevada . Published for its first two years in Genoa in what was then Utah Territory , new owners Jonathan Williams and J. B. Woolard moved the paper to Carson City , the capital of the territory, in 1859. The paper changed hands again the next year; Joseph T. Goodman and Dennis E. McCarthy moved it again, this time to Virginia City, in 1860. Noted author Mark Twain wrote for the paper during the 1860s along with writer Dan DeQuille . To cover for DeQuille, who took time off to visit his family in Iowa, the young Sam Clemens was hired. Located steps from the Enterprise offices, Mark Twain and Dan DeQuille, lifelong friends, shared a room at 25 North B St. in Virginia City. The paper was owned and operated by the Blake family in the 1890s through the 1920s. The paper went out of publication for a while and was revived by Helen Crawford Dorst in 1946 and was later purchased and revived by author, journalist, and railroad historian Lucius Beebe and his long-time companion and co-author Charles Clegg on May 2, 1952. Clegg and Beebe sold the Territorial Enterprise in 1961.