Photo Gallery
The Journal office building and the Ehlert electric shop building as they looked in 1884 on the SE corner of Main and Division Streets in Shawano. Ehlert building was erected in 1875 and the Journal building a few years later. The old lamp posts, board sidewalks and dirt street of an earlier day can easily be seen in the picture. The man standing in the doorway of what is now the Ehlert shop is George Huntington, better known as “Peg-Leg” Huntington. Standing next to him is Otto Raddant. The gentleman with the black mustache who wears a derby is Dr. W. H. Cantwell, who conducted a drug store and was postmaster at that time. The next man in front of the Journal office is the late Dr. F. E. Mielke. The boys we were unable to identify. In the doorway of the Journal is the late Dick Gumaer and Dave Gorham, then editor of the Journal. He also ran the express office along with his newspaper business. E. J. Goodrick can be seen in the upstairs window. He had a law office in the quarters now occupied by Dr. Stubenvoll. E. Mielke ran a barber shop on the corner. This picture was taken back in 1884, and the following year Dr. Cantwell left for Chicago to enter medical school. He is now entering upon his fiftieth year in that profession. (We are indebted to Mrs. F. E. Mielke for this photograph.)
Early Shawano County Journal locations in Shawano
Early history of the Journal
M. R. Stanley – owner and publisher of the Shawano County Journal
Harold Meyer – business manager of the Shawano County Journal
Editorial by the Meyers in 1951, at the end of the Journal
One of the many Journal office locations in the City of Shawano
Notes
The Shawano County Journal
1859 – 1951
The Shawano County Journal’s last edition was published on August 30, 1951. For 93 years, the Journal was a part of the Shawano County community. Much like today, with newspapers failing due to other forms of media, the demise of the Journal came about at the due to the growing prominence of radio and the Shawano Evening Leader which was a daily paper. A weekly paper couldn’t be sustained by the remaining advertising and simply wasn’t needed.
For us, it’s important to note the significance of the Shawano County Journal because of its history in the county and state. One of the oldest weekly newspapers in Wisconsin, the Journal was an institution for more than 92 years. It was founded in 1859, just eleven years after statehood, six years after Shawano County was incorporated, and two years before the start of the Civil War. The entire section of northern Wisconsin was divided into only a few counties and Shawano had yet to become a city.
The forerunner of The Journal was a publication called the Shawano Venture, started by a man named Calkins, from Waupaca. The paper originated for the purpose of the publication of delinquent tax lists. The Venture died after the county treasurer, John Wiley, turned the tax list publication over to two friends; Myron McCord and a man named Rockwell who started a small paper which they named the Shawano County Journal.
The Journal ownership passed through the hands of McCord to Charles Upham and later to D. H. Pulcifer. The next owners were Gust Gorham and a man named Wooster and in 1875 passed to Winans, Schweers, and Klebesadel. H. M. Loomer purchased the Journal in 1876 and three years later sold it to Mrs. Angeline Peevey, a sister of Upham. Peevey sold the Journal to Joe Rogers of prominence with the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Three Perry brothers bought the paper in 1897, owning it for four years. The Perrys sold it to Howard Sharp, who kept the paper for one year and sold it to L. D. Robert and the Journal Publishing Company. Roberts was the first Shawano County Superintendent of schools and you might know him because of the tribute marker on the SE corner of the Lincoln School property.
The Journal reached one of it highest peaks of prominence after if was purchased by Milton R. Stanley in 1912. A former school superintendent at Oconto, Stanley had an inborn ambition to be in the newspaper field and his work with the Journal quickly proved that it was more than a desire. “M. R.” as he was known to thousands in the Shawano County area, edited and published the paper for 23 years. His lively-written stories and editorials were reprinted in magazines and newspapers throughout the United States. Stanley’s rich humor and intense interest in the community made him one of Shawano’s best-known, and most loved, citizens.
At its end, the Shawano County Journal reported on local news, the Civil War and other wars including WWI and was a shining star during the formation and growth of the state, county, and City of Shawano.