Thanks to a partnership with Independence Public Library, more Historic Oregon Newspapers from Independence, Oregon, are now online! Specifically, additional issues of the Independence Enterprise have been added, as well as the complete run of the Independence Monitor.

Newly added issues of the Independence Enterprise range in publication date from July 21, 1911, to December 15, 1922. The newspaper began life as the West Side Enterprise, which was in existence from January 14, 1904, to October 8, 1908, and was published on a weekly basis. Then veteran newspaper editor Charles E. Hicks took over as publisher and proprietor of the paper. Under Hicks’s leadership, the newspaper was given a new name: the Independence Enterprise. The first issue was first printed on October 15, 1908, and, like the West Side Enterprise before it, the Independence Enterprise was published on a weekly basis.

In the early years of the Independence Enterprise, an annual subscription to the weekly paper was $1.50; a six-month subscription cost 75 cents. For more than six decades, the newspaper would keep the people of Independence, Polk, Oregon, abreast of current events. Local, state, and national news was covered in its pages. A sampling of headlines from the inaugural issue, published October, 15, 1908, includes “Prize Winners at School Fair” (page 1), “Portland Markets” (page 8), and “White House Stable Fire” (page 6). A political cartoon from this same issue shows then president Theodore Roosevelt wielding his “Big Stick,” and advertisements tout businesses and products ranging from the Little Palace Hotel to California Medicated Soap. The last issue of the Independence Enterprise would be published on June 26, 1969.

Besides more issues of the Independence Enterprise, the Historic Oregon Newspapers website now features the entire run of the Independence Monitor. The Independence Monitor was in publication for only six years, from 1912 to 1918. The first issue appeared on newsstands and doorsteps on August 1, 1912; the last issue was printed on July 6, 1918. The Independence Monitor was a weekly newspaper. At the beginning of its run, in 1912, the paper came out every Thursday. Beginning in January 1913, however, the newspaper was released every Friday. For much of its six-year existence, the Independence Monitor would be published on Fridays except toward the very end of its run. In its final weeks, the paper was printed on Saturdays.

In 1912, readers of the Independence Monitor could buy a one-year subscription to the weekly publication for $1.50. The $1.50 subscription rate remained constant throughout the life of the newspaper, and subscription payments were “strictly in advance.” G.A. Hurley was publisher and proprietor of the Independence Monitor during the entirety of the newspaper’s six-year run. The newspaper, under Hurley’s direction, published “Local News Items of Interest” and “Oregon News Notes of General Interest,” as well as national and international news stories. Headlines from the January 31, 1913, issue of the Independence Monitor include “Revival Meetings Closed Sunday” (page 1), “When Woodrow Wilson and W.J. Bryan Talked It Over” (page 2), and “Two Prominent Turks in the Balkan Peace Conference” (page 4). The Independence Monitor kept the citizens of Independence, Oregon, well informed of current events.

As with all historic newspapers available on the Historic Oregon Newspapers website, each and every issue of the Independence Enterprise and the Independence Monitor can be browsed and searched by keyword, thanks to optical character recognition (OCR) technology. In addition, these historic Independence, Oregon, newspapers 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. So, check out the newly added issues of the Independence Enterprise and the entire run of the Independence Monitor at Historic Oregon Newspapers today!