John Sanford, a native of Reno, was born in 1906. He received his education in the Reno public schools and at the University of Nevada. His first—and only—career began while he was still in his teens. He became a newspaperman, to follow the business his grandfather and father had pursued before him. The Reno Evening Gazette, northern Nevada's leading newspaper, consumed much of Sanford's time and attention for more than forty years. He worked as a reporter, city editor, editor, and editorial page editor with unsurpassed energy and attention from 1925 to 1968.

Researchers will find in this volume a history of Reno and western Nevada, its politics, social affairs, and economy, told with a journalist's flair. In reporting and writing of these events, Sanford obviously felt personally involved. He gives philosophical observations on what it meant to be a reporter and editor, what qualifications one needed, and how one's education should be pursued in the interest of a journalistic career. These firmly-held convictions undoubtedly influenced the newspaper stories and editorials John Sanford composed.

The memoir includes biographical information about his father, Graham Sanford, who also had a distinguished newspaper career; accounts of newspaper work as reporter, city editor, editor, and editorial page editor for the Reno Evening Gazette; character sketches and anecdotes of numerous Nevadans, in and out of newspaper work; sketches of family members; and a brief account of the 1916 presidential election.