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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper The Lancaster Ledger (Lancaster, S.C.) 1852-1905

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About The Lancaster Ledger (Lancaster, S.C.) 1852-1905

The triweekly Lancaster News has delivered the news to the citizens of Lancaster County, located in the north-central part of South Carolina, since 1905. The News, like Lancaster County itself, owes no small debt to textile magnate Leroy Springs, the founder of Springs Mills (now known as Springs Industries). When Leroy Springs opened the first cotton mill in Lancaster in 1896, the majority of residents were scraping out a living as sharecroppers. In time, the textile mills would eclipse small farms as Lancaster County’s main avenue of employment, a trend that continued throughout the 20th century.

In the early 1900s, three newspapers–the Lancaster Enterprise, Lancaster Ledger, and Lancaster Review – competed for patronage by local residents. The semiweekly Lancaster Ledger, established by Robert Smith Bailey on February 17, 1852, was the oldest and most venerated paper. The weekly Lancaster Enterprise, launched in the spring of 1891, “presented an unusually handsome mechanical appearance,” in the words of the Yorkville (South Carolina) Enquirer. The weekly Lancaster Review, a continuation of the Lancaster Carolina Review, was founded sometime around 1880. According to Rowell’s American Newspaper Directory, the Lancaster Enterprise, Lancaster Ledger, and Lancaster Review each circulated fewer than 1,000 copies per issue.

By 1905, Leroy Springs and his associates had grown concerned that Lancaster lacked a stable newspaper. They constituted themselves as the Lancaster Publishing Company and purchased the Ledger, Enterprise, and Review, which were merged into the Lancaster News. The first issue of the Lancaster News appeared on October 4, 1905. Charles Thorn Connors, the former editor of the Lancaster Review, was retained as editor.

The Lancaster News has since established itself as an institution in the community. During World War II, the Lancaster Publishing Company issued a special edition for GIs, also called the Lancaster News. In 1947, the Tri-County Publishing Company, owned by Elliot White Springs (president of Springs Cotton Mills and Leroy Springs’ son), acquired the News. Under the leadership of Paul League, the News transitioned in the 1970s from a semiweekly to a triweekly publishing schedule. In 2004, the Lancaster News upgraded its printing facilities and launched a free weekly paper, the Lancaster Carolina Gateway, serving the residents of an unincorporated community in Lancaster County called Indian Land. The Lancaster News is currently owned by Landmark, a company based in Norfolk, Virginia, that also manages two other South Carolina newspapers, the Chester News and Reporter and Pageland Progressive-Journal.

Provided By: University of South Carolina; Columbia, SC

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Lancaster Ledger (Lancaster, S.C.) 1852-1905

Dates of Publication

  • 1852-1905

Created / Published

  • Lancaster, S.C. : R.S. Bailey, 1852-1905.

Headings

  • -  Lancaster (S.C.)--Newspapers
  • -  Lancaster County (S.C.)--Newspapers
  • -  South Carolina--Lancaster
  • -  South Carolina--Lancaster County
  • -  United States--South Carolina--Lancaster--Lancaster

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Semiweekly, -Sept. 30, 1905
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (Feb. 12, 1852)-Sept. 30, 1905.
  • -  Publishers: R.S. Bailey, 1852-<1854>; W.M. Connors, <1862>; David J. Carter, <1873-1876>.
  • -  Editors: R.S. Bailey, 1852-<1854>; David J. Carter, <1876>.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Merged with: Lancaster enterprise, and: Lancaster review, to form: Lancaster news.
  • -  Lancaster enterprise (Lancaster, S.C.) (DLC)sn 93067757 (OCoLC)28173734
  • -  Lancaster review (DLC)sn 88084006 (OCoLC)18316722
  • -  Lancaster news (DLC)sn 83007465 (OCoLC)9420408

Medium

  • volumes ; 61 cm

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn84026900

OCLC Number

  • 10735093

ISSN Number

  • 2472-9027

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Lancaster Ledger Lancaster, S.C. 1852 to 1905. (Lancaster, SC), Jan. 1 1852. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn84026900/.

APA citation style:

(1852, January 1) The Lancaster Ledger Lancaster, S.C. 1852 to 1905. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn84026900/.

MLA citation style:

The Lancaster Ledger Lancaster, S.C. 1852 to 1905. (Lancaster, SC) 1 Jan. 1852. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn84026900/.