In the beginning it was called the Republican and Journal. Started in a now demolished building at 111 North Broadway in Stanley, the Stanley Journal was absorbed by the Stanley Republican in March 1897, continuing in the same editorship until 1943, when Mr. Bridgman died.
When Mrs. Bridgman died in 1954, it wasn’t quite the end of the Bridgman era of the Stanley Republican as to family ownership. That end would come in 1960, with purchase of the paper by Ralph Bloom and family, the paper sold in turn to the Fazendins, who sold to the McLoone family.
All told then, the Stanley Republican has had four different family owners in its 13 decades of local news coverage, each leaving their mark on the newspaper. Along with the owners, however, have been the employees—of which there were several in those early years and afterwards.
Simply put, you can’t run a weekly paper without help—and help came from many walks of life.
Among the earliest and longest serving were Charley Skog and Merton Stone, Skog a printer’s aide (“devil”) at the Journal and Stone a printer with the Republican. Mr. Bridgman’s brother Ben helped out as well, until he went back to school.
Of Skog and Stone we have the memories they left behind in print, with both living through and remembering the Great Stanley Fire of 1906.
Stone also remembered other newspaper staff from the early days, sharing thoughts that were later published in the 1981 Centennial paper.
“Those employed at the Republican officer and shop at the time of the fire were” W. H. Bridgman, Editor and also Postmaster; Miss Mary Brochtrup and Miss Mary Primmer, compositors; Henry Brochtrup, who is owner, editor, and publisher of the Boyd Transcript, was the Printer’s Devil”; and myself,” he said. “I understand Miss Brochtrup is still employed at the Republican, now as office manager.”
Stone’s recollection, dated to the 50s as Brochtrup retired in 1957, was not the only one, or the only list of employees. There were others, as well, including two Henrys, one surnamed Brochtrup and the other Johnson.
Brochtrup as mentioned previously left in October 1929, taking charge of the Boyd Transcript at the start of the Great Depression, and running it for several years before selling it to Karl Goetz. The Transcript—not the only Boyd paper to exist in time, was located at the present site of Sandi’s Salon on Murray Street when Brochtruip owned it, a new plant later built on what was then a vacant lot at the southeast corner Murray and Boyd Streets, now filled by Amazon Tropics Hair and Tanning.
As for Johnson, he spent 61 years with the Republican, staring in July 1919 as a printer’s devil, and retiring in December 1980 as shop foreman, also helping out as editor when there was no official one.
As for official editors there were several from the late 40s into the 50s, including John Bridgman, E. W. “Jerry” Bates, and Walter Brovald.
John Bridgman we have covered, meeting his end while on the job in 1948. The post was again filled in July 1949 by Walter Brovald, graduate of the University of Wisconsin. During his time in Stanley Brovald started a column entitled “Your Editor Gets Behind the 8-Ball,” holding forth on several topics, before leaving to WEAU and retrying a year later.
Brovald again left to purchase the Cadott Sentinel, being replaced by E. W. ‘Jerry” Bates, who also edited the Cadott Sentinel from 1919 to 1922.
As for Brovald, he would go on to found the Boyd Bee as well in November 6, 1959, making an agreement with the Transcript to not seek commercial printing from the Village.
“We shall stick by our agreement,” he said, despite advertising being an important source of revenue for a paper. Among the employees and contributors to the Boyd Bee, meanwhile, were Norbert “Norb” Scheuer and Marvin Ziwisky. Whether from agreement or otherwise the Bee was bought out and absorbed by the Stanley Republican in 1961 under Ralph Bloom, but not before young subscriptions seekers got new bikes for their trouble. Brovald would go on to sell the Sentinel as well and take a job as a university professor in the mid-1960s.
Through the years were many more employees, as well as locals contributors. To name them all and their stories would be space prohibitive. On the eve of the Twentieth Century they included Pete Lundgren, Linda Hakes, Donnella Christianson, Michael Fazendin, Sue Reedy, Marion Johnson, with Larry Cortese, Lori Hebert, Jean Thornton, Candy Brenner and David Boyea also among the names of those who have helped the news get out over the years.
Not to be left out are the many locals columnists—often known by “Mrs.” followed by their husbands name—covering country neighborhoods like Hamilton Falls, Maple Grove, Brownville, South Worden, Huron, Cox, Yellow River and others, or as Walter Brovald was told (and wrote about) when he came from Madison in the late 40s: “everyone knows where they are and that they exist—except perhaps you.” Over the years many filled this roll. Brovald meanwhile would learn the different neighborhoods, and even go on to coach softball during his stay in the area.
Transportation being by rail in the early days and roads not being what they are now, these neighborhoods sprang up across the countryside, sometimes grouped around a country school and other times another feature, such as a store. The country schools would give way to consolidation in the early 60s, while better roads and declining rail tickets would lead the Soo Line to petition The state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) for permission to discontinue service as planes took over for long distance travel. Through it all the paper endured and adapted, going from carrying international news like the first Russian Revolution (on November 18, 1904) to ignoring this all together, or covering national news as to its local impact, as with a flag at the library being lowered to half staff when Kennedy was shot.
Come the turn of the century and having weathered the rollout of both radio and TV to the masses, the paper would encounter another form of mass media, one that effectively dissolved all barriers, sped up time, and made truth questionable—the internet.
A form of media on which you can find the proof for anything, and yet from which the facts are not always clear.
In spite of such challenges or perhaps because of them, and redoubling its commitment to the local area, the Stanley Republican remains unto the present day, devoted to what it began back in the 1890s: keeping you updated on the happenings of the local “res publicae” and public affairs, from sawmill days to the present age—and hopefully far into the future.