The Denison Review Archive

Denison is the seat of Crawford County, Iowa, and takes its name from Jesse W. Denison, a Baptist preacher and land speculator who came to the area in 1856. “He was in many respects a farsighted and able man,” wrote county historian Frederick W. Meyers in 1911, “and decided that the interests of the community demanded some organ for the dissemination of news.” One of the results of this effort was the Denison Review, a weekly paper founded in 1867 and published by George W. Stephens and M.H. Money. The Review was published intermittently until 1869 when it was purchased by James D. Ainsworth and began to appear on a regular basis.

In 1874, the Review was sold to John Frederick Meyers, who remained active with the paper in some capacity until his death in 1898. In 1884, Meyers’ son, Charles K. Meyers, joined him as a partner in the business. Control of the paper passed temporarily to Charles in 1889 when his father was appointed to a position in the U.S. Treasury Department by President Benjamin Harrison. By 1893, Charles Meyers had left the Review to purchase the Cerro Gordo County Republican with his brother, Frederick W. Meyers, and John Frederick Meyers leased the Review to C.E. Wood. Wood retired in 1897 and the Review was leased to Frederick W. Meyers and E.F. Tucker until Meyers took full control of the paper in 1905. In 1910, ownership passed to James Perry Conner and his son, Raymond Conner, and Frederick W. Meyers remained as an editorial contributor.

The Review was a staunchly Republican newspaper in a county with a substantial number of Democrats. Its contents included editorial and political news, local news, correspondence from neighboring towns, a Sunday school column, and miscellaneous material. The Review was only one of several newspapers in Denison and Crawford County during these years. In 1873, for example, the Denison Bulletin was founded as a Democratic alternative to the Review. There were also two German language papers in Denison --Die Denison Zeitung founded in 1880 and the Crawford County Demokrat in 1887. In 1913, these two papers were merged into Der Denison Herald which lasted until 1920 when it merged with the Bulletin.

From 1890 to 1920, the Review was the most popular individual newspaper in the county. The paper more than doubled its circulation during this period from about 1,600 copies in 1890 to about 3,500 copies in 1920. It is important to note, however, that even after this substantial increase, the Review’s circulation represented little more than half of the total newspaper circulation in Denison during those years. By 1943, the pressures of weekly publication led the Review to merge with the Denison Bulletin. It remains the Denison Review to the present.