Grand Forks Herald Archive

On July 1, 1916, the Times-Herald Company of Grand Forks in Dakota Territory changed the title of its newspaper, the Evening Times, to the Grand Forks Herald. The Evening Times had debuted on January 1, 1906, in Grand Forks, the settlement originally known as Les Grandes Fourches, from a name given to this area by early French explorers to note the confluence of the Red and Red Lake Rivers. Several newspapers had come and gone since the town site was platted in 1875. By 1905, the Grand Forks Herald, founded by George B. Winship in 1879, was by far the most important.

Although a staunch Republican, Winship opposed the machine politics prevalent in northern Dakota Territory continuing into the early years of North Dakota statehood. He continually fought "the old gang" headed by Alexander McKenzie of Bismarck. A one-time Burleigh County sheriff, McKenzie represented the interests of the Northern Pacific Railway and was considered the "boss of North Dakota" for many years. The Evening Times was organized by a group of Grand Forks Republicans unhappy with Winship's continued opposition to "the old gang." The leading force behind this group was Jerimiah Dempster Bacon, a state senator and supporter of McKenzie. Perhaps attempting to exploit the Herald's biases, the top of the mast of the first edition of the Times read, "A SQUARE DEAL FOR ALL." The Evening Times proved to be a strong competitor, and upon retiring from the newspaper in 1911, Winship sold the Grand Forks Herald to the Times Company.

While Bacon was the leading financial backer of the Herald-Times Company, its active management fell to Norman B. Black as general manager. William Preston Davies and Holger Doran Paulson, as city editor, were the editorial and news department leaders of both newspapers. For the next three years, the Grand Forks Herald was published as the morning newspaper and the Times as the evening paper. The Grand Forks Daily Herald and Evening Times, as the combined paper was known, did not last long. Such was the strong reputation of the Herald, that in 1914 the name of the evening edition was changed to the Grand Forks Daily Herald. The "daily" was dropped from the title in 1916, and the Grand Forks Herald, as the paper came to be known, remains in operation to this day. Beaming with pride, the line under its title reads, "NORTH DAKOTA'S GREATEST NEWSPAPER.