Looking to catch-up on local news, activities, and entertainment? The Kenmare News is the place to start! For over a century, locals have depended on the weekly delivery of this beloved small-town paper, which has quite a history.

On March 2, 1899, Volume 1, Number 1 of the Kenmare News was published, making it the oldest business in Kenmare to be continuously operated under the same name. In the beginning, it was published on the west side of the Downtown Square, but after only five issues, the whole west side of the square was ravaged by fire, including all the equipment at The News. Sadly, it looked like the end of the short-lived newspaper.

As luck would have it, the old Fessenden Advertiser type and machinery was for sale. It was purchased and moved to Kenmare. The Kenmare News was back in business, ready to serve the community. In the early 1900s, printing the news was more labor intensive than simply typing on a keyboard. The process included hand-set type, type cases, chases, composing sticks, and more, some of which are still on display at The Kenmare News building in the Pioneer Village, another stop on this Talking Trail. The first form of typesetting was the hand set, where printers would painstakingly place one
individual letter at a time, motivation for keeping the articles short, sweet, and to the point! With the arrival of the linotype machine, typesetting was revolutionized, transitioning from the tedious hand composition to a more swift hot lead composition. The process remained the same until the late 1960s when a new modern method of “off-set” and “cold-set” type became the norm. Of course, as technology continued to rapidly evolve, the computer began to play a bigger role in the printing of The Kenmare News. Today, everything is composed on computers in the Kenmare office. From there, it is emailed to Greater Northwest Publishing in Minot, where the paper is printed, labeled, and mailed to subscribers.

The location of The Kenmare News has also changed a bit since its beginnings on the west side of the square. After the first location burned, the News relocated a few times over the years. It now is back on the west side of the Downtown Square, close to where it began. During the first thirty years, the ownership and management changed hands frequently. Some names that are still familiar today include Richard and Synthia Costello who owned it from 1936 to 1944; Theo Eckberg from 1936 to 1968. Glen Froseth was at the helm from 1968 to 1988 when Terry Froseth became the owner and remains to this day.