Will M. Maupin

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Will M. Maupin (1863–1948) was a Nebraska newspaper man who worked for the Omaha World-Herald, The Commoner, and the Hastings Democrat.

He was born August 31, 1863, in Callaway County, Missouri. His family supported the Union in the Civil War, and they moved to Illinois for a time where his father served in the Union Army. After the war the family moved back to Missouri, and Maupin left school to work at a local paper.

In May 1879 he got his first job at the Republican Holt County Sentinel, where he edited articles and began a sixty-year publishing career. For the next decade he traveled as a “typographical tourist,” writing and publishing articles as far away as Winnipeg and Caracas.

He then settled and published his own newspaper, the Meteor, in Holt, Missouri, across the river from Falls City, Nebraska.

In 1886 Maupin moved to Nebraska to work for the Falls City Journal and the Fall City News. He soon tried to start a second paper, the Rulo Weekly Bridgeman, in Rulo, Nebraska, but it lasted less than six months. He then worked for the Kearney County Gazette and the Hastings Independent in Minden, Nebraska, and moved around the state, trying again to start newspapers without lasting success.

In November 1890 he became the Lincoln correspondent for the Omaha World-Herald, and by 1893 his family had moved from Minden to Lincoln to be closer to his work. He focused on politics and covered major events, including the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha. He also wrote the popular Limnings column, which mixed editorials, anecdotes, and poems.

In 1898 he collected Limnings into a book called Limnings, which did well both financially and professionally. He always saw himself first as a newspaperman rather than an author.

At the 1900 Democratic national convention he met William Jennings Bryan and started a new column, “Whether Common Or Not,” for The Commoner. The column was similar to Limnings but with more direct political commentary, and Maupin’s time at The Commoner is remembered as some of his happiest years.

In 1918 Maupin served as director of the Bureau of Publicity under the Nebraska Conservation and Welfare Commission and acted as custodian of the Scotts Bluff National Monument. He later returned to writing and created a column called “Sunny Side Up” for the Omaha Bee, continuing the style of his earlier work.

In 1934 Maupin was elected to the State Railway Commission. After his term ended he went back to journalism, editing the Clay County Sun until his death in 1948.