We are a mighty team of professionals, producing a weekly newspaper covering Iron County, Wisconsin and offering high-quality printing, copying, graphic design, and office supplies right here in Hurley, the “Snow Capital of Wisconsin”.
Ardith Carlton/Miner photo
Did you know that we are the oldest business on the Gogebic Range? The Iron County Miner newspaper has a long and rich history of covering the news and serving business customers in the Northwoods. The first issue of the “Montreal River Miner” was published on October 8, 1885, by D.C. Gowdey and S.D. Goodell, about whom little is known. Ida Holmes Paddock Knight, a sister-in-law to S.D. Goodell, purchased the Montreal River Miner in 1893 and sold it in 1897. From our 100th anniversary edition of the newspaper: published October 10, 1985, written by Armand Cirilli, a writer at the Miner:
“During the years, other papers were absorbed, going back first to the Gogebic Iron Tribune in 1893.” “He [Frank (Pa) Hand] bought the Miner and merged it with the Tribune, retaining the Miner name, on December 9, 1893.”
Other owners of the paper, past and present, include Frank Marta (La Nostra Terra 1904-1913), Wilbur Henry Bridgman (Iron County Republican), Martin Vickers (Montreal River Miner), Alvin O’Konski, Richard A. Hemp, Frank Hall, Fritz Emunson (1913), Chester Emunson, Fa Secor, Bob Secor, Bill Moore (1973), Ernie Moore, and Michael Moore.
Other papers that were folded into the Iron County Miner over the years include the “The Iron County Republican” (1901), “Iron County News” (1903), “Iron County Citizen” and “La Nostra Terra” (Our Land) (1904), which was written and published entirely in Italian. In 1913 the Iron County News and La Nostra Terra were merged, and the Italian-language articles were no more.
Since 1885 the technologies used to print the paper have changed greatly, and the Miner staff has kept abreast of all of them. The first issues of the paper were printed using wooden type, set backwards by hand into wooden trays, then loaded onto a press, inked, and pressed against paper one at a time to create the newspaper. This is known as letterpress printing. The next innovation was metal, or “hot” type, which was more durable, but still had to be set by hand. In those days, the Miner staff could forge specialty hand-cut illustrations into metal on-site for use in the newspaper, and used special templates made of hard material to do so. Later we upgraded to offset lithography, where the printing staff created a “plate” on thin metal, using an in-house photographic process, and that plate was then used to print the copies of the newspaper. We still do a little bit of lithography to this day. Today we use Apple computers and the latest Adobe software to create the newspaper, and use digital printing equipment to produce the many high-quality print jobs our customers enjoy.
“The Miner” has been lovingly brought forward into the 21st century by generations of forward-thinking entrepreneurs and is a cornerstone of the business community in Wisconsin’s beautiful Northwoods. If you are interested in the history of Hurley and Iron County, Wisconsin, please visit the Iron County Historical Museum, where artifacts from the long and storied history of the Iron County Miner have been donated.