Since the earliest settlers, Routt County has seen five historic newspapers published, the Steamboat Pilot, Routt County Sentinel, Routt County Republican, Oak Creek Times, and the Yampa Leader.

In 2006, the very first edition of the Steamboat Pilot was found in a Crawford family's, Steamboat Springs first settler's, home. The Crawford family asked the Bud Werner Memorial Library to digitize the newspapers and make them available online. The Library, in partnership with the Tread of Pioneers Museum, Routt County Museum and Heritage Fund, Yampa Valley Community Foundation, Dolph Simons Family Foundation, and countless individual donors who donated in memory of Dee Richards, former Managing Editor for the Pilot and local historian, raised the necessary funds to see all of Routt County's historic newspapers digitized up to 1923.

The digitized newspapers are available on the Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection website, 24/7, and can be searched across multiple publishers and issues for free. The Bud Werner Memorial Library carries the microfilm of all of these newspapers until they ceased publication, or in the case of the Steamboat Pilot & Today newspaper, up to present day.