Story

The Newspapers That Told Shamokin’s Story

Daily, weekly, religious, and immigrant-language publications made Shamokin a city of competing presses, editors, printers, offices, advertisements, and distinct reading communities.

Historically established
1873 illustration of the two-story Shamokin Herald printing office and book bindery with people outside
Shamokin Herald printing office, 1873An architectural inset on the 1873 borough map identifies the Herald printing office and book bindery.Image date: 1873

More than one newspaper voice

The 1884–85 volume names the Weekly Times and workers associated with the Shamokin Herald and Shamokin Times. The 1889–91 volume describes the Daily Dispatch as daily except Sunday, the Herald as a Friday paper, and the Shamokin Weekly Times. These are printed period descriptions of publication schedules and personnel, not a complete census of every title or issue.

A crowded field of presses

By the 1895–97 and 1901–03 surviving volumes, readers encounter the Daily Dispatch, Daily Herald, Daily News, Weekly News, Saturday Review, Polska i Litwa, and Przyjaciel Gornika among the listed publications. The non-English titles are retained as printed because this project has not verified public translations. Offices, publishers, editors, reporters, printers, and business managers appear as separate parts of the newspaper trade.

Titles change; the record continues

The Library of Congress catalogs the later Shamokin News-Dispatch from 1933 through 1967 and identifies the Shamokin Daily News and Shamokin Dispatch as predecessor titles. That catalog does not collapse every earlier paper into one lineage. Instead, it carries the publishing story beyond the years covered by those volumes and shows why titles, date ranges, and succession must be recorded precisely.