In the beginning — 130 years ago

Upon his arrival in 1877, S.A. Brewster described Creston as “the town claimed 2,500 inhabitants the first year I was there, and was a rather wild, frontier place made up largely of railroad boys and merchants, all fine people.”

After a stint at one of the town’s two newspapers, The Creston Gazette, in May 1878, Brewster and W.M. Patton leased the town’s other paper, the Democrat, owned and edited by Ed C. Russell.

After three months, Brewster bought out Patton’s interest and formed a partnership with Russell. Later, Russell decided he could handle the Democrat alone, and after settling with Brewster, Brewster leased an old two-story building, which had been a drug store on Maple Street, located on the corner of the alley north of the Mallory Bank, which would later become First National Bank.

Brewster ran a partition through the center of the building, resided in the back and, in May 1879, opened a job printing business — the fragmented beginning of what would eventually become the Creston News Advertiser was born.

Competition

The editors of the Creston Democrat and Creston Gazette were not pleased with Brewster taking their job print business and in turn passed a resolution they printed in the newspapers that said they “would not make complimentary mention of merchants of their home town who took job printing to a job office, in preference to the office of the local newspaper.”

“The result was that the business men, being fair minded, did not like the methods my competitors employed to boycott me and flooded my office with gratuitous business, and from that date the success of my business venture was assured,” Brewster said in a story he wrote for the 16th anniversary issue of the Creston Daily Advertiser.

Brewster published a four-page, 6-inch by 9-inch, three column advertising sheet, which he distributed in 1979 at various area Fourth of July celebrations, he called the Advertiser. It was free.

The Advertiser was a hit with merchants and Brewster continued to publish his Advertiser weekly the next seven months for free.

In the meantime, Russell and a new partner, George Devoe, at the Democrat began publication of a regular six- or seven-column weekly paper they called the Weekly Advertiser, with a subscription price of $1 a year.

Popular

In 1879, Brewster sold half the interest in the plant to his brother, Edward A. Brewster, who came to Creston from Chicago. That partnership lasted about a year, and after disagreeing on management, Samuel Brewster bought out his brother and was sole owner again.

Edward Brewster went to work for The Gazette when J.B. Harsh became its owner.

S.A. Brewster purchased an old Foster hand press from the Democrat, the Advertiser was enlarged to a regular six column and distributed weekly starting Feb. 1, 1880, also at a subscription rate of $1 per year.

“From the time the paper started it was popular with the people,” Brewster wrote. “It was independent in politics and gave all the news without fear or favor.”

By the end of 1880, it had become even larger and had a subscription list of more than 1,000.

The Democrat had changed hands, was called the Republic, and later merged into the Gazette.

On Jan. 1, 1881, the Creston Gazette started publishing a morning daily and the competition was beginning to heat up for the Advertiser.

“The Advertiser soon found that a weekly was too slow to accommodate its city patrons and arrangements for conducting a daily paper were begun,” Brewster reported.

Daily

Brewster purchased the Gazette’s power presses and the first issue of the Daily Evening Advertiser was printed at a subscription price of 35 cents a month.

“From its first issue the Evening Advertiser was popular with the people,” wrote Brewster. “An evening paper took so much better with the working class of people, of which Creston is made up, than a morning paper, that in less than one month from the establishment of the Evening Advertiser, its contemporary was compelled to change from a morning to an evening paper, to hold its share of patronage.”

The Daily Advertiser continued to be popular and soon took over both stories of the original building.

In 1882, a bindery was added and later the entire plant was moved to 200 and 202 Maple Street, on the corner of Montgomery Street.

In 1899, Brewster sold the paper and plant to Clayt Skirvin. Then in 1900. he bought back half interest in the paper and was its editor until he and Skirvin bought the Ottumwa Democrat.

In 1901, Brewster sold his interest in the Daily Advertiser to Skirvin and bought Skirvin’s interest in the Ottumwa Democrat and moved to Ottumwa.

New owners

Skirvin then consolidated with the Creston Gazette and the paper became The Creston Advertiser-Gazette.

The Advertiser-Gazette was sold to Paul Junkin in 1905 and then, in 1919, W.A. Roseberry and Dewitt Sowers purchased the paper from Junkin. Sowers’ interest in the paper was sold to Carl Davenport in 1922.

In 1927, Skirvin started another paper, the Creston News, and after 11 months of publication merged with the Creston Advertiser-Gazette under the ownership of Joel Hill and Frank Thayer.

The name was changed to The Creston News Advertiser.

In 1932, W.S. Rupe purchased the News Advertiser and, in 1935, W.E. Day became owner and publisher.

The B.F. Shaw Newspaper Group of Dixon, Ill., purchased the paper in 1946 and E.J. Van Nostrand was named publisher.

It’s unclear when the plant was moved again, but by the early 1920s it was located at 206 N. Maple Street. It remained at that location until October 1966 when it was moved to its present location, 503 W. Adams Street.

Van Nostrand retired Jan. 1, 1974, after 27 years with the News Advertiser, and Harold Roberts was named publisher.

Shoppers

About that same time, Lores “Stew” Stewart purchased The Creston Shopper from Kerm Kunath — a long-running advertising publication located at 210 N. Maple St.

Roberts said there was a shopper published by the Creston News Advertiser at that time also. It was known as the Mid-Crest Advertiser and later as the Mid-Crest Money Saver.

“Creston had a number of papers through the years,” said Robertsin an interview in 2004. “The Mid-Creston Advertiser started under W.E. Day.”

Roberts remained publisher of the News Advertiser until he retired in 1984.

That year, Shaw Corporation purchased The Creston Shopper from Stewart and named Stewart publisher of the Creston News Advertiser.

Stewart stayed four years, followed in February 1988 by Arvid Huisman.

The Creston Shopper continued to be produced at its Maple Street location until 1992 when its operation was moved into the Creston News Advertiser building.

Current realm

In 2000, Huisman left the News Advertiser to take the position of director of the Iowa Newspaper Foundation based in Des Moines.

Richard Paulsen was hired as publisher in May of 2000.

In 2003, the Creston Shopper name was changed to the Southwest Iowa Advertiser.

“It reflects our more regional distribution,” said Paulsen in 2004. “We distribute in Corning, Lenox — much more regional.”

Today, the Creston News Advertiser has 27 full-time and 10 part-time employees in the plant.

It is delivered to 5,250 household and business subscribers by 11 route drivers and about 100 individual carriers.

It is delivered or mailed to seven area counties and as far away as Clatskanie, Ore.

Approximately 61 papers are delivered daily to area schools as part of the Newspapers in Education program.

The News Advertiser went online with a Web site in early 1998.

“The online offering is our most recent advancement,” said Paulsen. “I think Creston and Southwest Iowa will continue to evolve. As the regional hub, we’re able to keep things together. The Creston News Advertiser will continue to strengthen our regional coverage as the area continues to grow.”

In August 2006, the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune became a member of the Shaw Newspaper group under the direction of Paulsen and the Creston News Advertiser.

In addition to its own daily newspaper and shopper, there are eight other newspapers and shoppers and numerous special tabloids for area schools and communities printed by Creston Publishing Company.