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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper The Charles Mix New Era (Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D.) 1???-1911

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About The Charles Mix New Era (Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D.) 1???-1911

Launched in 1900, The Charles Mix New Era was a Friday paper published in Wagner, the seat of Charles Mix County in South Dakota. The circulation was 1,000 copies per week. The paper consisted of eight six-column pages with four pages each of home and ready prints. The home prints included content from local schools and churches, commissioners’ proceedings, legal notices, reports from a full range of correspondents across the area, and a number of sensational advertisements for the local drug store. The ready prints included state and national news, farmers’ advice, women’s and children’s columns, jokes, and short and serial stories. The New Era advertised itself as the “only official county paper on the [Sioux] reservation” and was the only paper to carry the official Indian lands list. The New Era also offered subscription bundles with popular national newspapers and advertised them as “cheap reading” for the long winter nights. Its audience was predominantly local farmers and businessmen and their wives and children but the paper maintained a large “foreign” subscription base by offering news from correspondents around the state. It also used subscription contests to add to revenue during slow years and described itself as the “paper that made the Gate City famous.”

The New Era was affiliated with the Republican Party and printed stories in favor of Prohibition, womens’ suffrage, and the labor movement. It was a member of the South Dakota Press Association and often featured strike news from the South Dakota newspaper union. The paper demonstrated some animosity toward the local Democratic newspaper, The Wagner Leader, and its editor Jacob W. Eggers but otherwise enjoyed cordial relations with other newspapers. In 1908, after a particularly violent election season, The Charles Mix New Era declared that it had had enough of politics and would be “non-political” from that time. Further stories against the Insurgent or Progressive party were occasionally printed, but the paper otherwise kept its promise.

Editor and local postmaster Addison H. Pease operated The Charles Mix New Era in the first permanent building in Wagner. In 1905, Pease bought a new Diamond Cylinder Press manufactured by the Challenge Machinery Company. It was the only press of its kind in South Dakota and Pease advertised it heavily as such. Businessmen George G. Johnson and Frank Ray purchased the New Era in 1906 and continued the paper in much the same format. Fourteen months later, Ray sold his portion of the company to Dale Savage, former foreman of the Armour Chronicle Tribune. Johnson and Savage continued publishing a fundamentally unchanged paper until Savage departed in 1908. This left Johnson the sole editor and proprietor until May 1909 when opera house manager E.C. George joined him as editor and Johnson took a backseat as business manager and job printer. Due to ill health, Johnson retired in November 1909, leaving E.C. George editor for the remainder of the paper’s life.

On March 10, 1911, The Charles Mix New Era merged with The Wagner Leader to form The New Era-Leader. This name lasted until February 2, 1912, when E. C. George, the editor of The New Era-Leader, changed the name to The Wagner Leader again. George maintained control of the paper, leaving the format virtually unchanged, until April 4, 1912, when Democrats Lounzo E. Corey and Loren D. Blackman purchased the Leader and changed its name to The Wagner Post. The latter continues to serve the readers of Charles Mix County to the present.

Provided By: South Dakota State Historical Society – State Archives

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Charles Mix New Era (Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D.) 1???-1911

Dates of Publication

  • 1???-1911

Created / Published

  • Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D. : A.H. Pease

Headings

  • -  Wagner (S.D.)--Newspapers
  • -  Charles Mix County (S.D.)--Newspapers
  • -  South Dakota--Charles Mix County
  • -  South Dakota--Wagner
  • -  United States--South Dakota--Charles Mix--Wagner

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Ceased in 1911.
  • -  Available on microfilm from: State Archives, South Dakota State Historical Society.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Merged with: Wagner leader, to form: New era-leader.
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 6, no. 15 (Mar. 3, 1905).
  • -  Wagner leader
  • -  New era-leader 2689-1166 (DLC)sn 99068037 (OCoLC)41686020

Medium

  • v.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn99067984

OCLC Number

  • 41681868

ISSN Number

  • 2689-1131

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 Charles Mix New Era Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D. 1???. (Wagner, SD), 1???. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn99067984/.

APA citation style:

(1???) The Charles Mix New Era Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D. 1???. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn99067984/.

MLA citation style:

The Charles Mix New Era Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D. 1???. (Wagner, SD) 1???. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn99067984/.