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SALT LAKE CITY — Classified advertisements have come a long way through the years.
Once a staple for newspapers, there are now several websites that provide consumers with what the classifieds have always brought. The internet has served as a community market that classified ads were, where people could turn to find deals, jobs, cars and anything else imaginable.
While the idea of classified ads have not changed one bit in Salt Lake City, the content offered through the years shows how much life has changed over the decades.
The Deseret News began printing on June 21, 1850. In first editions of the paper, advertisements centered around dentistry and blacksmithing. According to an early edition of the paper, it advertisements cost $1 for a half square, $1.50 per square and succeeding insertions cost $0.50 each.
As for classified ads, livestock were an early and common theme of the era. Some were for trades, selling or buying. However, notices to be placed of horses, cows or other animals that had strayed or were possibly stolen were among the most common classified ads in Salt Lake during the 1800s.
Aside from ads, newspapers would run train schedules in the later 1800s as railroads were built and could carry people across the state.
However, as technology changed, so did advertising — not that livestock was completely wiped from classifieds.
When automobiles became more prevalent at the turn of the 20th century, ads began focusing on the growing car sector of the community. Ads featured all sorts of auto service specialists in the 1910s.
By the 1920s, 30s and 40s, classified ads caught up as the popularity of owning automobiles grew and individuals began to buy and sell cars from each other.
As the years went on, the size of the paper grew and the amount of advertisements rose with it. By the late 1940s, 50s and 60s, multiple full pages were dedicated to classified ads only — whereas the first editions of the entire paper were just four or five pages long. By then, a good chunk of ads involved housing as people began moving to suburbs.
Ads focused on the growing popularity of television sets and other appliances around the 1950s.
By the 1980s and 1990s, ads focused on computers and cell phones.
Of course, nowadays everything can be found online with just one click of a button. Online classified advertisements tailor to all sorts of products.