SHENANDOAH – July 29, 1995. Nearly 50 people gather outside a former car dealership on Ringtown Boulevard for a group photo.

These were the staff members of the Shenandoah Evening Herald. They were out of a job and that afternoon’s edition was it. Our neighbors.

A newspaper whose roots dated back to the borough’s fledgling days would go to print for the last time, a purple headline above the fold:

Goodbye…

The group photo spanned the front page underneath.

It’s been a pleasure to have served you!

— The staff of the Evening Herald

Shenandoah had it’s own newspaper from 1870 until that day in the summer of 1995. Out-of-town newspapers continued to have a brick-and-mortar presence in town until 2017.

It had been sold to the owners of the Pottsville Republican.

The news broke on Tuesday, July 25, 1995, to employees and later to the community.

HERALD SOLD!

A press release announced the sale, with David Carr, Sr., vice president and chief operating officer of The Goodson Newspaper Group, saying it “will result in the best possible product to serve the readers and advertising customers of the Herald.”

On-Line, the call-in feature that later evolved into Thunder/Enlightening in the Republican, told a different tale.

“I hate to tell you this but the Evening Herald will not be published. The workers up in the Shenandoah Heights building have their notice, Saturday will be their last day of work. You’ll be getting a paper from Pottsville. I don’t want that paper!” ~Shenandoah

“I am really sorry to see that the Evening Herald is sold to the Pottsville Republican. All people will be reading about now will come from south of the mountain, north of the mountain will be nothing but by-lines as usual.” ~Ringtown

“I certainly am going to miss the Evening Herald, everything about it. And I am not going to subscribe to no Pottsville paper, I don’t care what name they put on it, it still isn’t the Shenandoah Evening Herald and there was done in very, very bad taste.” ~Shenandoah

“I don’t care what they say, call me in six months and try to tell me it’s still the same.” ~Shenandoah

“I’m sure I speak for many people when I say that we are going to miss the Shenandoah Evening Herald, the employees that worked there, the On-Line segments, and it seems like we’re going to take a step backwards without our community newspaper. We wish you all the best of luck and we will be praying for all of you. Thank you for many many years of a good newspaper and a good service and maybe somebody will turn this around and gie us our newspaper back.” ~Shenandoah

“It’s a sad day in this area that the Evening Herald is going off into the sunset. We always got their views, their feelings, sometimes they were right, sometimes they were wrong, but it was their feelings and their points of view and it was their views of what was happening. Now we will only have one and no opposing view.” ~Shenandoah

On July 31, 1995, Evening Herald subscribers still received a newspaper with the Evening Herald name and Pennsylvania coat of arms as expected.

Except, it was nothing more than a rebranded edition of the Republican. The same stories appeared on the front page of both papers.

No longer was it produced by neighbors, longtime friends, classmates, you name it, “up the Heights” at the top of the Heights Hill.

Uzal H. Martz, Jr., then-president of J.H. Zerbey Newspapers and publisher of the Republican touted the newspapers would be “better together.”

Except, only a select few of the Herald’s staffers — members of our community — were brought on. The rest fanned out to other newspapers in Hazleton, Shamokin, and elsewhere, or left the industry entirely.

By 1999, there was no more separate, faux-Evening Herald, replaced by the Pottsville Republican & Evening Herald. It would remain the Republican & Herald until 2009, when the ampersand and the Old English font of the Herald, adorned for its entire history, would disappear.

“A community without its own newspaper is a community without a conscience. A community that loses its own newspaper becomes a community devoid of history, and a community without its own newspaper becomes a community without an identity,” an editorial, in the centennial edition of the Kutztown Patriot weekly newspaper read on May 23, 1974.Kutztown Patriot Centennial Edition, May 23, 1974.

Beginning on Dec. 5, 2015, Shenandoah — once the largest community in Schuylkill County — was no longer without its own, locally-focused news organization.

As part of our celebration of that fact, we’re taking a look back at Shenandoah’s journalistic heritage and the newspapers that once served us.

A fledgling weekly in a fledgling boom town

When Henry C. Boyer and Thomas J. Foster launched the Shenandoah Weekly Herald on May 28, 1970, just under 3,000 people had made the four-year-old borough home.

The two men were brought to down by William Grant and Joel B. McCamant, prominent men in town in those days. They initially set up shop at Lloyd and Jardin before moving to Centre and Oak.

On Saturday, August 21, 1875, the first Daily Herald rolled off the line.

Shenandoah’s population had nearly tripled by then, to 8,000 with more than 20,000 living in the surrounding valley, according to the first edition of the Herald.

“This paper is the first daily and the first newspaper printed by steam north of the Broad mountain and marks a new era in the business in this section of the county,” the paper reads.

The paper squabbled with the infamous Molly Maguires, according to the 75th anniversary edition of the Herald.

After receiving threats, “the Herald force made the rounds armed with Colt revolvers and word got around that Foster and Boyer’s men were the wrong parties to tackle.”

“Because the Herald was outspoken and carried full details of the current Mollie outrages, copies of the newspaper circulated throughout this part of the state,” the anniversary edition continued.

In 1876, the paper took on the name “Evening Herald” and the paper thrived until 1879.

Financial troubles plagued the paper for a few years and the Great Fire of 1883 flattened the Herald plant, among a large swath of town. The paper rebuilt once again, now publishing from a plant on East Coal Street near Emerick Street. Another fire destroyed that plant in 1895 and the paper moved to the unit block of South Jardin Street, where it remained until the midcentury.

The Straughn family then acquired the paper, operating it until January 1963. Thomas Martin owned it for two years before it was sold to what would become Ingersoll Publications.

Unifying northern Schuylkill’s dailies

The 1960’s marked expansion for Shenandoah’s daily.

Mahanoy City and Ashland — the next largest communities “north of the mountain” each had their own daily newspapers at the time, the Record American and the Daily News respectively.

On Oct. 3, 1966, the Evening Herald announced they had purchased the Ashland Daily News.

Hubert Strunk had published the Daily News, which was printed in Shamokin.

Strunk remained on staff along with Bob Kyler, Esther Woods, Laura Umlauf, Betty Kehler, Irene Canfield, and Norma Evans.

In Mahanoy City, on Wednesday, April 2, 1969, readers learned that the Record-American would be acquired by the Herald effective Monday, April 7.

“With this expanded newspaper, the accent will be on news of the area,” the front page story reads. “Offices will be maintained at Shenandoah, Mahanoy City, and Ashland for the convenience of residents and business firms.”

The paper would now cover a wide area stretching from Centralia in the west to Hometown in the east.

A voice for our community

For much of its history, the Evening Herald was a truly local paper. Local news from local people.

The paper, and its people, understood life “north of the mountain” and wasn’t afraid to step up when necessary.

In 1988, when Shenandoah Borough was bankrupt and battling the state to file as such, a community effort arose to help raise money and keep the borough afloat.

Led by Councilman Joe Valento, it was the “I Love Shenandoah Fund” and for most of 1988, it was on the front page of the Herald.

The “Shenometer,” they called it — a thermometer graphic showing how much the fund had raised — and it remained out front with a paragraph telling readers how they could contribute.

Regular updates were provided, too, often by Bill O’Brien.

On Saturday, May 14, 1988, the fund was at $17,029 and the Love Fund update by O’Brien, at times, read like a rebuttal.

O’Brien noted that Bud Davison, of Davison’s Furniture, contributed a $1,000 check on behalf of the company.

“Shenandoah has been a big part of our lives,” Davison is quoted in the Herald. “Please accept my check for $1,000 towards the future of a better Shenandoah. You have faith, the folks at Davison’s have faith. With the help of all, Shenandoah will survive.”

“Indeed, there is tremendous faith in Shenandoah, not withstanding that snooty editorial in the Pottsville Republican this week,” O’Brien wrote. “The condescending tone of the Republican writer conveyed the impression that Shenandoah folks are a bunch of ignoramuses who need someone like the Pottsville Republican to tell them how to run their borough.

“The writer had no praise, only a scoffing comment, for the love that folks have shown by supporting the ‘I Love Shenandoah Fund.’ It’s obvious that the old attitude of superiority that for years prompted the County Seat Intelligentsia to look down on Shenandoah is still very much alive at 111 Mahantango Street,” O’Brien added.

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