The history of a community can be found in the pages of its newspapers, and the community of Clearwater is no different.

 

Clearwater has gone through a number of newspapers, some that lasted a number of years and some that barely lasted for one. No matter what the title of the paper was, however, one thing remained the same – it was dedicated to bringing the local news to the people of Clearwater.

 

The first newspaper published in Clearwater was The Messenger, printed Nov. 9, 1878 and published by J.L. Barlow. 

 

Clearwater’s next newspaper was The Clearwater Review, published by Charles H. Stevens in 1884. The community was actually large enough at the time for a competing paper, which for the Review was The Clearwater Advance, published by Isaac Cameron from 1884-1886.

 

The prepaid subscription for Cameron’s newspaper was $1 for a year, 50 cents for six months or 25 cents for three months. “No compromise with whisky” was carried in the masthead during 1884.

 

In 1892 The Clearwater News was born, which ran through 1886. The publisher was Clarence “C.A.” French with Editor Albert P. Hiatt. The first issue was eight pages long, but only the front and last pages held items of local interest.

 

Next came The Clearwater Herald, which was published by John Evans from 1903 to 1930, it was Clearwater’s second longest running newspaper. For many years school news was a regular feature; students took turns being the reporter for the week.

 

Clearview Elementary School published the community’s next paper, Clearwater News, which didn’t come along until 1978. The paper featured local events and items for sale.

 

The Clearwater Shopper came along in 1980, as did The Clearwater New Times, which ran until 1983. The Citizen-Tribune’s own editor and publisher, Gary Meyer, was the New Times editor and publisher.

 

Due to lack of advertisers, The Clearwater-Clear Lake Current newspaper only lasted one year – 1985. It was published and edited by Donald Smith; Virginia Lee was a reporter.

 

The next paper, Ledger News, was published by Wayne Halvorson and edited by Mary Jo Mosher in 1995. It only lasted 18 months.

 

Gary Meyer began publishing The Clearwater Tribune in 1987 with Susan Ida-Peterson as editor. It was published until Dec. 2015 and was Clearwater’s longest running newspaper to date.

 

In January 2016, The Clearwater Tribune and The Sherburne County Citizen of Becker merged and became The Citizen-Tribune. Meyer, who was the editor and publisher of both, felt the move was necessary for financial reasons, including fewer Clearwater businesses advertising in the Tribune.

 

Clearwater residents David Agnew, Joe Ergen and Elaine Paumen remember the most popular section in the newspaper years ago being the ‘society’ pages, also known as the gossip pages. There one could read about things such as who had a birthday, who came to visit, what was served for refreshments and what was done for entertainment.

 

“The paper was a reminder of meetings, events, social announcements, births, obituaries, garage sales, local store ads and local sports’ scores,” said Paumen. “During war years there were pictures of local soldiers who had been killed.”

 

Today, The Citizen-Tribune is delivered free to over 11,000 residences, and covers the communities of Becker, Clear Lake and Clearwater, as well as numerous townships. Its goal is, and always will be, to deliver local news, helping keep the spirit of community alive.