6/10/2009:
Today is the 125th anniversary of the Emmons County Record in Linton. The Record is North Dakota's third largest weekly newspaper despite the fact that Linton has fewer than thirteen hundred residents. The paper was founded by Civil War veteran, Darwin Reed Streeter, who moved from Bismarck with a horse-drawn wagon over a prairie trail to the tiny county seat town of Williamsport in May of 1884. The wagon hauled an old Army hand press and a few cases of steel type.
The county seat had just been organized in Williamsport and there were no railroads. Most of the business in Emmons County was done along the Missouri River where steamboats brought in some of the supplies, with the rest coming overland from Bismarck. The Record was originally published in a small building in Williamsport, then, for a short time in the publisher's own homestead shack.
In 1899 the county government was moved to Linton, which was created specifically to be the county seat, located at the geographical center of Emmons County. Darwin Streeter moved the newspaper to Linton at the same time...again using a horse and wagon. He published in an old stone house about a mile out of town, then later in "old town" Linton. When the railroad came through, the paper made its way up to its present site on Broadway Street.
For many years, the Record was a four page paper, with only three or four columns of local news. Its advertising consisted of a few patent medicine ads and messages from the Bismarck stores, and the first issue was sent out to about seventy-five subscribers. The fact that the publisher held down a homestead, farmed and worked his way into political office now and then, made it possible for the Record to survive.
In addition to publishing the newspaper, Darwin Streeter served as Emmons County Clerk of Courts and was a member of the North Dakota House of Representatives, where he wrote the state's libel law. Streeter sold the paper to his son, Frank, and moved to Florida. Frank ran the paper until 1930, when he sold it and moved to California. Today, the paper is published by Allan and Leah Burke, who are hosting an open house and historical program tonight at 7 o'clock at the county courthouse. Special guest at the paper's birthday party is George Whitmore of San Pedro, California...the great-grandson of the paper's founder, Darwin Reed Streeter.
Dakota Datebook written by Merrill Piepkorn
Source: Allan Burke-Publisher, Emmons County Record