of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, page 383
JOURNALISM. On the 27th day of October, 1840, the seed from which has sprung the Muscatine Journal of today was planted, when from a humble cabin there was issued on a primitive press the first edition of the Bloomington Herald.
Vast as is the difference between the Bloomington of 1840 and the Muscatine of 1911, it is no greater than the difference between the Herald of that early day and the Journal of the present. The city has prospered and grown. So has the paper. The city has seen its lean years and its fat ones, and so has the newspaper, which more than seventy years ago began its course under none too favorable auspices.
Further on in this article the Hon. John Mahin is quoted, to give a picture of the Herald office when he first entered it as an apprentice over sixty years ago. Nowhere that it has been possible to discover is there an accurate description of the first Herald office, save only as the outlines of that picture may be dimly discerned from the somewhat plaintive note of the editors who bewailed their poor housing in the first issue of their paper.
Following their leading editorial, in which John B. Russell and Thomas Hughes--their names are given in this order advisedly, though Hughes was the senior partner--made their bow to Bloomington and "to the people of Iowa," and in which they outlined the policies which were to govern the newly launched journal, the reader will find this paragraph.
"The first number of the Herald would have been issued two weeks ago but for the impossibility of securing a room. The room which we now occupy is so small that we can open not more than half of our matenals and so open as to afford us but little protection from the weather. We have concluded to delay the publication of the second number until a room for its reception can be finished, which will require but a few days. The cold weather for some time past has proved the impossibility of making regular issues, with our office in such a miserable cabin, making the delay a matter of necessity."
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