Message The Daily Astorian

The Daily Astorian

Located on Exchange St. in downtown Astoria, this is The Daily Astorian main office, home to our news, advertising and circulation departments.

Hours of Operation

Monday 8:00AM - 5:00PM
Tuesday 8:00AM - 5:00PM
Wednesday 8:00AM - 5:00PM
Thursday 8:00AM - 5:00PM
Friday 8:30AM - 5:00PM
Saturday Closed
Sunday Closed

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About The Daily Astorian

On the morning of Tuesday, July 1, 1873, a crowd milled at the corner of 10th and Commercial streets until Tri-Weekly Astorian Publisher DeWitt Clinton Ireland threw open his office doors and started selling papers.

The book “The Astorian” by Roger Tetlow reports that the city’s first newspaper since 1866 sold out by noon that day – and Ireland said he wished he had printed more than 500 copies.

Business? You could say it was booming.

That four-page issue of the Tri-Weekly Astorian established a tradition that celebrates its 129th “birthday” July 1.

The news of the day was presented differently in 1873. Headlines, when they were used, were in small type and confined to one column, as were the stories. Small news briefs, sometimes no more than a sentence long, were front-page news and had to share space with classified advertising.

These excerpts are taken from the pages of the first issue:

  • “Capt. George Flavel, who has been to California overseeing work on the barkentine Jane A. Falkinburg for a month past, is expected home to-day.”
  • “OUT OF SORTS – For the want of certain letters in the alphabet which the type founders neglected to send with the bulk of the type ordered, much that we wished to say to-day in the first issue of the ASTORIAN is necessarily omitted.”
  • “U.S. Mail and Express. From Astoria to Clatsop Beach! Fast Horses! Good Carriage!”
  • J.W. Gearhart – Dealer in hay, grain and feed with “a general assortment of groceries” including “flour, bacon, hams, shoulders, lard, butter, cheese and eggs.”
  • The Steam Tug Varuna leaves Astoria Tuesday and Saturday mornings for Fort Stevens, Cape Disappointment and Unity carrying mail, passengers and freight.
  • A year subscription to the four-page paper, published on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, cost only $5. Ads cost $1.50 per square per month.

Small beginnings, big dreams

With no education beyond age 12, Ireland learned the newspaper trade as an apprentice in South Bend, Ind. At 19, he founded his first paper in Mishawaka, Ind.

Three years after he began the Tri-Weekly Astorian, Ireland grew ambitious. The Tri-Weekly Astorian evolved into The Morning Astorian May 1, 1876, Astoria’s first daily newspaper.

The daily glory lasted just over a month. Faced with low profits, Ireland was forced to cut publication to weekly status June 19, 1876.

To raise financial stability, the company branched out, printing salmon canning labels. In another year – on June 2, 1877 – the paper went daily again.

In 1881, Ireland sold the paper to John F. Halloran and Pitman W. Parker. The paper would change hands several times until 1930, when it merged with the Astoria Evening Budget, a separate paper founded in 1893 by Oscar W. Dunbar and John Gratke.

Evolution

In more than 140 years, the Astorian – be it Morning, Evening, Budget, Tri-Weekly or Daily – has changed. News used to come to the remote city of Astoria by horse and buggy; now, high-speed computers and satellite links transmit news from around the world. Gone forever are the days of hand-engraved and hand-set type and pictures; our journalists write and edit local stories, compose headlines and design pages on desktop computers.

However, some things never change. The names and places in the articles and advertisements from that July 1, 1873 issue are familiar. Gearhart, Van Dusen, and Flavel can be found in the Astorian today.

For nine decades, The Daily Astorian has been under the leadership of the Aldrich-Forrester family. In 1968, Michael Forrester became editor; three years later he was named editor-publisher. In 1973, when the Astorian-Budget Publishing Company merged with the East Oregonian Publishing Company (now EO Media Group), Michael Forrester became editor of the East Oregonian in Pendleton and his father, J.W. Forrester, who had been at Pendleton, was appointed editor of The Daily Astorian.

In 1988, J.W. Forrester retired and his son, Steve Forrester, assumed the post.

Steve Forrester added the publisher role to that of editor in 2000.

2013 EO Media Group buys Seaside Signal, Cannon Beach Gazette and Coast River Business Journal from Country Media to expand its coastal reach.

In July 2016, after 28 years at The Daily Astorian’s helm, Steve Forrester retired. David Pero, former chief operating officer of the Eugene Register-Guard, became the publisher and editor.

EO Media Group also owns the Blue Mountain Eagle, Cannon Beach Gazette, Capital Press, Chinook Observer, Coast River Business Journal, East Oregonian, Seaside Signal, Wallowa County Chieftain, The Hermiston Herald and Oregon Coast Today. In addition, it publishes these websites: CoastWeekend.com, DiscoverOurCoast.com, FarmSeller.com and EastOregonRealEstate.com