The Territorial Enterprise was founded on December 18, 1858, in Genoa, then part of Utah Territory. It moved to Carson City in 1859 and to Virginia City in 1860.
In 1862 a young writer named Sam Clemens began sending letters to the paper, and that fall he accepted a job as city editor. On February 3, 1863, he signed a funny letter about a party "Mark Twain" for the first time.
He worked at the paper until he left for San Francisco in 1864, alongside the writer Dan DeQuille. The two shared a room on North B Street, steps from the newspaper office.