More than 60 years of Josephine County news coverage to be added to state digital archive

The Daily Courier building in Grants Pass, Oregon.
February 10, 2023

Saved for the People: Southern Oregon’s historic newspapers and the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program

By Maureen Flanagan Battistella

The Daily Courier and other Southern Oregon historic newspapers are now preserved for the future in the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program.

Travis Moore, publisher and owner of The Daily Courier, has agreed to release more than 60 years of the paper for the online Oregon Digital Newspaper Program (ODNP). The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program is a free online repository of Oregon’s newspapers managed by the University of Oregon’s Knight Library. While most newspapers in the ODNP are in the public domain, i.e. published before 1925, Moore has released issues published through 1945 so covering the Great Depression and World War II. The Daily Courier is one of many Southern Oregon newspapers now available online; over the last five years, more than 77,000 pages of Southern Oregon’s newspapers have been digitized for the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program.

Publisher and owner, Dan Mancuso, looks over the first issue of the Illinois Valley News, published in 1937 in Cave Junction, Oregon.

The University of Oregon began preserving Oregon’s history in the 1950s as librarians microfilmed hundreds of newspapers from around the state. With the advent of new technologies and federal funding, in 2009 preservation moved from microfilm to searchable, online platforms focusing on public domain newspapers published from 1860-1922. Today, the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program has more than 2 million newspaper pages online published from 1840-2022, searchable by keyword, newspaper title, location and date range. The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program is free to all with no associated cost or membership required to access the collection.

In 2019, local historians and genealogists formed the Southern Oregon Newspaper Project to work towards increased coverage of Southern Oregon’s newspapers in the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program. Rogue Valley Genealogical Society’s rubric stands above thousands of Southern Oregon newspaper pages in the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program (ODNP). In 2019, knowing the importance of news reports contemporary to genealogical research, the RVGS board and personal advocates agreed to fund work that would digitize historic issues of the Ashland Tidings.

The Jacksonville Booster Club Foundation funded the digitization of early issues of the Jacksonville Times and Jacksonville Sentinel in 2021, work that was completed and extended thanks to funding from the Dirk Siedliecki and the Friends of Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery in 2022. Also in 2022, early issues of the Grants Pass Courier and its predecessor, the Rogue River Courier, were digitized thanks to funding from the Library Services and Technology Act administered through the State Library of Oregon.

This 1910 Cottrell & Sons cylinder press printed Southern Oregon’s early newspapers. It was donated to the Kerbyville Museum by the Illinois Valley News. The museum also has a Merganthaler Linotype press.

The Talent News, published from 1892-1894, was digitized thanks to funding from the Talent Historical Society.

Historian and preservationist George Kramer has also focused on historical newspapers as a way to mitigate changes brought by architectural renovation and excavation under the requirements of the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). Kramer depends on newspapers as a primary source of information in his work to investigate, document and describe historic structures and is keenly aware of the importance and relevance of historical newspapers to today’s work.

Between 2018 and 2019, 2019, the Ashland Family YMCA funded the digitization of several Ashland newspapers, as the YMCA renovated and restored Camp Low Echo as Camp DeBoer, which opened in May 2021. The Lake of the Woods Girl Scout campsite, constructed between 1946 and 1962, has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2003. Kramer also worked with the Rogue Valley Irrigation District to preserve Central Point newspapers.

A new postcard announces the availability of Southern Oregon’s newspapers in the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program. Ask for a set of three free postcards by emailing [email protected].

With publisher permissions, ODNP also has current issues and back files of copyright protected newspapers as they are published or with a short embargo, including the Applegater and the Illinois Valley News. And available over the next several years, thanks to funding from the state Library of Oregon will be all available newspaper runs of Oregon’s tribal nations, including those from the Siletz, Warm Springs and Grand Ronde confederated tribes. Also in planning are 19th and 20th century issues of Chemawa American and Indian Citizen, newspapers published respectively by the Indian Training School in Salem and its earlier boarding school in Forest Grove, Oregon.

Oregon historic newspapers can be searched at OregonNews.UOregon.edu, where the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program is hosted at the University of Oregon. For more information on the Southern Oregon Newspaper Project or to request a set of three free postcards about the project, contact Maureen Flanagan Battistella, Southern Oregon University Sociology/Anthropology, at [email protected] or 541-552-0743.

Back issues of another prominent Southern Oregon publication, the Mail Tribune in Medford, are available through 1946 through the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program and through 1963 through Newspapers.com, a commercial newspaper database. Requests submitted to Rosebud Media, the Mail Tribune’s owner at the time of its closure on Jan. 13 this year, to add more recent digital content to the ODNP database have not met with success.

Email Maureen Flanagan Battistella at [email protected] or call her at 541-552-0743.

Picture of Ryan

Ryan

Related Posts...

Hundreds rally to protest Trump administration

A crowd of between three and four hundred people gathered on Ashland Plaza on Saturday afternoon, then spread out onto nearby sidewalks along East Main Street as cars honked and protesters cheered. It was part of a large number of demonstrations nationwide as opponents of President Donald Trump’s administration took to the streets of communities large and small across the U.S.

Read More »

Media Week panel discusses local news

A varied group of Ashland news organization representatives took a deep dive into the shifting landscape of journalism Saturday at Southern Oregon University. About 50 people attended the more than two-hour event, which described how local journalism has changed markedly over the past 10 years with the demise of the Mail Tribune and Ashland Daily Tidings.

Read More »

Our Sponsors

Rogue Theater Company Richard L Hay Center Cat on a hot tin roof Ashland Oregon
Ashland Community Composting Ashland Oregon
Literary Arts Oregon Book Awards Portland Center Stage at the Armory Portland Oregon

Latest posts

Poetry Corner: Theater and forest

Poetry Corner: The Poetry Corner continues to celebrate the renewal that theater and old growth forests bring to Southern Oregon. Poets Pepper Trail and Bruce McConnell approach age and renewal from different perspectives, different settings, and all the ambiguity offered by both.

Read More >

Hundreds rally to protest Trump administration

A crowd of between three and four hundred people gathered on Ashland Plaza on Saturday afternoon, then spread out onto nearby sidewalks along East Main Street as cars honked and protesters cheered. It was part of a large number of demonstrations nationwide as opponents of President Donald Trump’s administration took to the streets of communities large and small across the U.S.

Read More >

Our Sponsors

Rogue Valley Symphony Visit the Grand Canyon Medford Grants Pass Oregon
Southern Oregon Summer Camps and Activities Directory Ashland Medford Oregon
Conscious Design Build Ashland Oregon
Pronto Printing Ashland Medford Southern Oregon

Explore More...

Supporters of imprisoned wildland firefighter Brian “Hakiym” Simpson and a defense attorney who represented him in court are sending an almost 3,000-signature petition and letter to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, urging her to exonerate the 42-year-old and have him released from prison.
The Rogue Valley Symphony recently revealed the lineup for its 2025-26 season and it starts out with a bang — a weeklong festival of three concerts in late August at Medford’s Craterian Theater, featuring the debut of the symphony's newly acquired 9-foot Hamburg Steinway grand piano, the Raven.
A crowd of between three and four hundred people gathered on Ashland Plaza on Saturday afternoon, then spread out onto nearby sidewalks along East Main Street as cars honked and protesters cheered. It was part of a large number of demonstrations nationwide as opponents of President Donald Trump’s administration took to the streets of communities large and small across the U.S.
A varied group of Ashland news organization representatives took a deep dive into the shifting landscape of journalism Saturday at Southern Oregon University. About 50 people attended the more than two-hour event, which described how local journalism has changed markedly over the past 10 years with the demise of the Mail Tribune and Ashland Daily Tidings.
Chipotle, the world-wide Mexican food franchise, will open its first restaurant in Ashland on Wednesday, it has announced in a news release. The Ashland outlet will be open from 10:45 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
ashland.news logo

Subscribe to the newsletter and get local news sent directly to your inbox.

(It’s free)

Don't Miss Our Top Stories

Get our newsletter delivered to your inbox three times a week.
It’s FREE and you can cancel anytime.