The Oskaloosa herald., 1907-03-21
HERALD HISTORY
IS INTERESTING
GROWTH OF PAPER READS AL.
MOST LIKE A ROMANCE.
FIFTY SEVEN YEARS OF LIFE
Has Moved AIcng At the Head of the
Procession Ever Since O3ka-
lcosa4 and 1t Were Babies
Together.

There is no better evidence of the
growth of a community than the pro-
gress made by its local newspaper
Indeed many judge the merits of a
community, socially and financially
by the appearance of the paper pub
lished In its midst And there could
be no better illustration Of the
growth and development of the Her
aid than in the pictures of the presses
used in its issue from 1850 to the
present time.
The Herald was established in 1850
by John r. Needham and the first is
sue was gotten out on the hand press
shown at the bottom of the page, or
the second day of July 81 years ago.
The capacity of the first press was
100 Impressions per hour or GO com
pleted papers of less than half the
size issued today. Then, too, one
paper per week satisfied the wants Of
the community, while now eight are
issued every week. In comparison Of
reading matter put out and of circu-
lation counted the Herald now issues
1854 columns every week, or COM
pared with "a columns in 1850, and
puts out 22,S00 papers every week as
against 430 in 1850.
In about two years after the paper
was started the early hand press was
replaced by cylinder press, also op.
Grated by hand This gave way to
the first power press which was set
up in the office in 1879. The capacity
of this press as the larger one that
followed it was about 800 impressions
or 400 completed papers per hour.
These presses sufTiced until the
Spanish-American war was at its
height A press that was built to
give 500 impressions per hour was
speeded up to 1900. 1t worked rea-
sonably well until one day like the
proverbial zone hoss shay" it all
went to pieces and so did the morals
of everybody connected with the pa,
per. The heat of the occasion almost
melted the wires until Babcock Dis
patch press was secured and set up
in the office.
The Dispatch, which is the one
shown in the second picture from the
top, is the highest type of hand-feed
newspaper press made. 1t ran so
fast and did such good work, that at
the time it was set up it seemed that
the Herald would never need faster
machine.
But the town and the community
grew, and more people began reading
newspapers, nntil for the past two
years it has been almost impossible
to get the Daily Herald out on time
especially during the short days in
winter The capacity of the Babcock
was 5000 impressions or 1900 com
pleted papers per hour. 1t took hard
work all the afternoon to print both
sides of the paper, and the last pa
pers off the press were necessarily
late every evening.
The new press, which is described
in detail elsewhere, has a capacity of
$4,000 impressions, or G,000 cOmplet.
ed papers every hour. This you will
observe is 100 papers every minute.
History of The Herald.
Back in the early part of the year
1850, a young man, Hugh McNeely,
came to Iowa from st. Clairsville
Ohio. He came on visit to see the
new West and to locate in some bust
ness If opportunity and an opening
were offered. Mr.. McNeely was struck
with the promise of the little city of
Oskaloosa and decided to locate in
the place. He looked around for a
chance to enter some line of business
and acting on John r. Needham's
suggestion that a newspaper would
prosper in the town he began plan
ming for the laying of the foundation
of the paper that is today the Oska-
loosa Daily Herald. Oskaloosa at that
time was mere village. of perhaps
five hundred inhabitants, but it gave
every promise of prominence and rap
i'd growth. Mr.. Needham's Judgment
was that a newspaper would grow
with tho community and would pros
per as the wealth of the county and
city was developed. He determined
to make the start, and he enlisted his
enterprise and strong personality
with the tireless effort of McNeoly
whom he had known in Ohio. The