Winneshiek County Newspaper Archives now available online

Anyone interested in researching the history of Winneshiek County can now access the Winneshiek County Newspaper Archives online, which has more than 150 years of local newspapers in digital format. The archive can be accessed by visiting winneshiekcounty.advantage-preservation.com/.

Currently, the archive includes newspapers such as the Decorah Public Opinion, Decorah Journal, Decorah Republican and The Calmar Courier all beginning in the mid-1890s. In addition, the collection includes a number of smaller runs of papers published in Winneshiek County, with the oldest being the Decorah Weekly Journal from December 1857.

This project was made possible after the Luther College Preus Library and the Winneshiek County Historical Society were jointly awarded more than $30,000 by the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs in 2018.

"The grant funded the digitization of microfilm copies of the papers held by the Luther College Preus Library. While microfilm is a great format for long-term preservation, unless you know the publication date of the article you are interested in, it can be pretty time consuming to hunt through reels of film to find what you are looking for," explains Preus Library director Ryan Gjerde.