Grant County Herald (Lancaster, Wis.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
3,737 issues from 1850 to 1925, published in Lancaster, Wisconsin, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Grant County Herald is said to be the oldest still operating newspaper in Wisconsin. It was founded in 1843 by L. O. Shrader and Charles Mallett with the intent “to enlighten the Farmer, Miner and Mechanic.” The publishing office was located in Lancaster, the county seat of Grant County, the most south-western part of the state bordering Iowa across the Mississippi River, as well as Illinois to the south. The area’s easily accessible lead resources first attracted settlers as early as 1828. Later, the land was primarily used for farming.
Shrader retired from the business shortly after he started it and was superseded by H. A. Wiltse. In October 1843, J. D. Spalding became the sole proprietor who was joined and soon superseded by James Madison Goodhue in 1845. Goodhue, an attorney from Lancaster who had previously been a contributor to the Herald under the pen name “G.” Goodhue, would later start The Minnesota Pioneer, the first newspaper published in the Minnesota Territory.
Architecturally, Lancaster prides itself on the octagonal glass and copper-clad dome of its courthouse, which was designed by Armand D. Koch a significant Wisconsin Architect. When it was built, a drawing of the building was featured on the front page of the February 9, 1902 issue of Herald. As its title suggests, however, the newspaper did not only cover news from the town but the entire county. Among other small towns, Grant County was home to Pleasant Ridge, a community of African American…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Lancaster, Wisconsin, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress