Chronicling America–San Juan Islander Newspaper

The San Juan Islander Newspaper 1860-1922

Originally published as The Islander in1891, the San Juan Islander changed hands several times over the years. After the Culver brothers purchased the paper in 1896, they declared their membership in the Republican Party and changed the name of the paper to the San Juan Islander in 1898. As the inhabitants of the region were mostly fishermen and farmers, much of the paper was devoted to news of farmers’ cooperatives, commodity prices, new agricultural production methods, and the movements of shipping vessels. The paper was eventually sold to John N. Dickie of Seattle in 1913 and ceased publication in 1914. People can read and research issues from this and other newspapers around Washington and U.S. for free at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov.

The San Juan Islander is among nine newspapers and more than 50,000 historic newspaper pages recently contributed to Chronicling America, a project of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.

These historic newspapers are a rich resource for historians, genealogists and other researchers. They provide names, dates, images and tell the story of a community or region in such a comprehensive way. They bring local history alive.”

Chronicling Americaprovides free and open access to more than 2.3 million full-text searchable pages from 295 titles published between 1860 and 1922 in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The Washington State Library’s National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) grant was recently renewed through June of 2012, allowing more pages from other newspapers aroundWashingtonState to be uploaded over the next two years.

Part of the mission and purpose of the Washington State Library is to collect, preserve and make accessible to Washingtonians materials on the government, history, culture and natural resources of the state.Read more about the State Library.