St. Cloud Times marks 150 years of stories

BY SUE HALENA • MANAGING EDITOR •

How does a news organization celebrate as it enters its 150th year? 

By doing what it has done best all those years: providing news and information to its communities so that they might know themselves better and make themselves better.

This special section and one coming Aug. 29 mark the 150th year of the St. Cloud Times. Our business lineage goes back to June 13, 1861, when The Minnesota Union published its slim first weekly edition.

These June and August sections recap 150 big stories from 15 communities where Times editors, reporters and photographers have done much of their work through the years. The sections don’t pretend to be a comprehensive history; we don’t even claim that these big stories are the biggest stories. But we know that the fires and tragedy, job creation and job loss, inventions and fame, faith and volunteerism defined and changed Central Minnesota.

Today’s section brings you 100 stories from the first 100 years. On Aug. 29, you’ll find the remaining 50 stories and a history that shows how the St. Cloud Times grew with its communities — and the world’s changing technologies.

To create these sections we called on University of Minnesota journalism graduate and Monticello resident Stephanie Dickrell. She immersed herself in the research and writing. We found excellent assistance from the staff of the Stearns History Museum and Benton County Historical Society.

Today’s news is tomorrow’s history. Our history informs but does not trap us. Read these pages to know your community better, and let every day’s news guide your quest for a better community. We now move on to covering the big stories of the next 150 years.

On June 13th, 2010, the Times published a whole history section of the paper.  I tried / failed to remember to pick up a copy, but three of my clients saved it for me!  Many of the stories recapped are familiar to Larry and me because we've researched them in connection with Hesch and Janson history.
The headline photo and article was the 1886 tornado--a story that's very familiar to us.  You can go to the St Cloud Times webpage and use the search box there to find other goodies from the section!