The Newspapers

Manco's picture in the El Paso Tribune, captured from DVD

Look closely at this shot from the VHS tape.
The Editor's name is Albert Grimaldi, just like the film's producer.
The date sure looks like Monday June 23, 1872.
Can anyone with a 16mm print of this film get a better view? Let me know if you do.

The photographic halftone process wasn't invented until 1871 (see http://mediahistory.umn.edu/time/1870s.html, http://cdcga.org/HTMLs/decades/1870s.htm, http://www.ydr.com/about/history/1comm5.shtml, http://din-timelines.com/1871-1875_timeline.shtml, and many others, several of which mention that even papers like the New York Times didn't publish a halftone photograph until the 1880s), and the newspaper page really, really looks like it says Monday June 23 1872. There are several inconsistencies here.

• June 23 1872 was a Sunday.
• The El Paso Tribune itself was established some twenty years later, on February 6 1892, and folded some time in December 1893 (see http://www.rootsweb.com/~txelpaso/places.html).
• The city now called El Paso was called Franklin before 1888.
• The railroads didn't reach El Paso until the 1880s.
• At least some of the money in the safe is clearly in Confederate bills (see below, I'm working my way down to it...) which attracted only historical interest after 1865.