Belt Valley Times Archive 

The first issue of the 8-page, 6-column Belt Valley Times was published on June 21, 1894 in Armington, Montana. Throughout the 1920s, Sumner A. Remington edited and published the paper. Contents of the paper from that time included news of coal mine strikes, bootlegging, railroad strikes, and the fight for county seat. The paper also had a comics page, syndicated fiction, and a section for high school news. Throughout the 1920s, the Times maintained a cheerful outlook in spite of mine closures and the local industrial shift from mining to agriculture.

Sumner's daughter, Genevieve, who worked for the paper in the 1930s, married Earl L. Mizen in 1940. Sumner Remington retired in 1951 and leased the paper to Earl and Genevieve. They worked on the paper together until Earl's death a few years later. Genevieve remained publisher until 1976, when she sold the Times to Samuel Levi Butler and his son, Samuel L. Butler Jr. The Butlers purchased the Judith Basin Press the year before. Soon after the sale of the Times, a catastrophic fire caused by a train derailment destroyed several Belt homes and businesses. The Times office, printing equipment, and collection of past issues were all lost. A new office for the paper opened in 1977, and later that year, the Times merged with the Judith Basin Press to become the Press-Times. The publication's title became the Belt Valley Times again in 1979.