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Newspapers and media: a press town from the first sheet
1831 — the present
The frame: South Bend was a press town before it was a city. Its first newspaper was printed in 1831, when the settlement was a trading post on the St. Joseph River, and for the next century and a half the city's public business…
The first paper: the North-Western Pioneer and St. Joseph's Intelligencer
1831–1834
The first sheet: The first newspaper published in South Bend — and, by the Cass District Library's research guide to the paper, the first newspaper published west of Ann Arbor in the Michigan Territory, north of Indianapolis, and…
The Free Press and the St. Joseph Valley Register: Colfax's paper
1836–1887
The second paper: The Free Press was established in 1836 by William Millikan and ran, in the 1907 history's words, "fairly successful for a time; but after nine years was discontinued." In September 1845 its plant and fixtures…
The South Bend Tribune: five generations, three sales short of a century and a half
1872 — the present
The founding: The South Bend Weekly Tribune was first issued on 9 March 1872 by the Tribune Printing Company. Its incorporators — Alfred Bryant Miller, Elmer Crockett, James H. Banning, and Elias W. Hoover — had, in the 1907…
The Times line and the News-Times: the Democratic paper, 1853–1938
1853–1938
The other line: The Tribune 's great rival began as the St. Joseph County Forum , started in 1853 by Ariel Euclid Drapier and his son William H. Drapier — "the first attempt to establish a Democratic newspaper in St. Joseph…
The Sunday News, the Post, and the rest of the 1907 survey
1848–1907
The remainder of Howard's press chapter: Beyond the two great lines, the 1907 history's press chapter carries the city's lesser papers at the sizes their records support, and this entry keeps them together as Howard kept them.…
The west-side press: Polish, German, and Hungarian papers
1873–1953
The papers of the immigrant city: South Bend's factories drew Poles, Germans, and Hungarians in the tens of thousands, and each community kept a press of its own. Howard's chapter gives the Polish and German papers of 1907 in…
The Black press: the Forum, the Journal, the Herald-Times, and The Reformer
1923–1971
The city's Black newspapers: The national directory record carries four Black newspapers published in South Bend before the civil-rights era's own paper arrived. The South Bend Forum , a weekly, dates from 1923. The South Bend…
Company and labor papers: The Studebaker Co-operator and the union's own house
1924–1963
The papers inside the plants: At survey size, the record carries one company magazine whole and one union local's institutional frame. Studebaker's Co-operative Department published an employees' magazine called The Studebaker…
WSBT radio: the Tribune's station, from WGAZ to 960
1922–2016
The first licenses: Radio in South Bend begins with a station that failed. The city's first commercial license went to WBAQ, licensed to Myron L. Harmon and located at the YMCA building — first licensed 29 April 1922 and deleted…
The radio roster: FM's two starts, the school station, and the campus air
1943–2023
The rest of the dial: FM came to South Bend twice. The Tribune 's first FM grant, for 47.1 megahertz under the construction-era call sign W71SB, was held in suspension while the Federal Communications Commission investigated…
The Irish Football Network: the network one sportscaster built
1947 — the present
The voice: Joseph Martin Boland played tackle on Knute Rockne's 1924 Notre Dame team, graduated magna cum laude in 1927, coached at St. Thomas in Minnesota and on Elmer Layden's Notre Dame staff from 1934 to 1940, and left…
Television: WSBT-TV and the market it made
1952–2016
The first telecast: WSBT-TV first signed on in December 1952 — on the 21st by the Tribune 's own fiftieth-anniversary account; a station reference record gives the 22nd, and the dates stand as the records give them. It broadcast…
The press as institution: the Press Club, the halls, and the archives
1907–2024
The craft's own house: The documentary trace of the press as an institution in South Bend is thin, and this entry prints it at its true size. Howard's 1907 chapter on the city's fraternal and social organizations lists "the Press…