We’ve recently added more content from Polk County, this time coming from Independence, OR! This batch was made possible by the folks at Independence Public Library. The added issues come from The Polk County Post, going back to the start of the paper in 1918 and through 1921.

During that time, it was the second largest newspaper coming out of Independence. Though it was a lot newer than the other town newspaper, the Independence Enterprise, it still managed to develop a circulation of 705 in a town of about 1,380 by 1920, its third year in existence, according to the American Newspaper Annual and Directory from that year.

Even though it was a relatively small paper, The Polk County Post still managed to squeeze in a lot of important news tidbits from around the world and across the state in its weekly issues. The newspaper also had a focus on the agricultural leanings of the town, particularly hops which were a major part of the town’s economy during this time.

The Post also started to include film listings from the local movie theater, a glimpse into the entertainment available at that time.

As with all of our digitized papers, you can browse through more issues on the Historic Oregon Newspapers website. Each issue of The Polk County Post can be browsed and searched by keyword, thanks to optical character recognition (OCR) technology. In addition, content can be downloaded as a PDF or JPEG file and saved for future reference or research purposes at absolutely no cost to visitors to Historic Oregon Newspapers.