Highlights of The Gazette’s 140 years

Fred Faulkes, co-owner of The Gazette, rides in a buggy with the city’s fire chief, while Clarence Miller, the newspaper’s other co-owner, preferred to get around town in the city’s first gasoline-powered automobile. This picture was taken around 1900, seven years after the men bought The Evening Gazette. (Gazette archives)

The Gazette has been a trusted news source for 140 years, back when Chester A. Arthur was president and you could buy, according to a Gazette ad, an “elegant house” on Third Avenue SW for $2,200.

Highlights from the newspaper’s history include:

Jan. 10, 1883 — The first edition of The Evening Gazette is printed — four pages, 3 cents a copy — by founders Lucian H. Post and Elbridge T. Otis, working from their office at 309 First Ave. SE. The city had 10 other newspapers at the time.

The Evening Gazette’s offices were in the building at 309 First Ave. SE for its first two years. (Gazette archives)

Lucian H. Post, co-founder of The Evening Gazette, 1883. (Gazette archives)

Elbridge T. Otis, co-founder of The Evening Gazette, 1883. (Gazette archives)

March 1884 — Clarence Miller and Fred Faulkes buy The Evening Gazette. Their family members would guide the paper for the next 100-plus years.

Clarence Miller, co-owner and publisher of The Evening Gazette, 1884-1912. (Gazette archives)

Fred W. Faulkes, co-owner and editor of The Evening Gazette, 1884-1905. (Gazette archives)

November 1885 — The Evening Gazette moves to “The Gazette Block” on First Avenue near Third Street NE.

The Evening Gazette moved to “The Gazette block” on the north side of First Avenue near Third Street in November 1885. (Gazette archives)

Dec. 5, 1888 — The Evening Gazette moves to 83-87 First Ave. SE, now the site of Cedar Rapids City Hall.

Jan. 9, 1904 — The Evening Gazette celebrates its 21st anniversary by printing 108 pages, the biggest edition ever published in Iowa.

July 12, 1919 — The first aerial photograph of Cedar Rapids is published, showing the downtown, the Cedar River and several bridges.

Nov. 28, 1921 — A comics page is added.

1925 — The Evening Gazette moves to the corner of Third Avenue and Fifth Street SE, its headquarters for the next 95 years.

The new Gazette building opened in 1925 at 500 Third Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids. (Gazette archives)

April 18, 1927 — The Evening Gazette buys The Republican and changes its name to The Evening Gazette and Republican.

April 24, 1927 — The first Sunday morning edition is published.

April 14, 1930 — The first Picture Page appears.

June 3, 1932 — The Evening Gazette and Republican changes its name to Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Feb. 2, 1936 — The paper adds “the” to its name to become The Cedar Rapids Gazette.

May 5, 1936 — The Gazette wins the Pulitzer Prize for community service after exposing corruption in state government related to illegal gambling and liquor sales.

Aug. 14, 1945 — The Gazette publishes an extra to announce the end of World War II.

May 28, 1949 — The Gazette publishes its last extra (until the 9/11 attacks in 2001) on a guilty verdict in the sensational Rutledge “love triangle” murder trial.

November 1947 — The Gazette launches KCRG-AM radio and KCRK-FM, the area’s first FM station.

Oct. 12, 1953 — The Gazette launches KCRG-TV from the Miller Building, First Avenue and First Street SW. The station moves to Second Avenue and Fifth Street SE in 1975 and is sold to Gray Television of Atlanta in 2015.

Jerry Fleming (front) and Marty Kucera load rolls of newsprint on The Gazette’s letterpress in 1960. The press was on the lower level of The Gazette building at 500 Third Ave. SE until printing operations moved to a new Goss press at the Color Web facility on Bowling Street SW in 1999. (Gazette archives)

Before newspapers began using computers and “cold type,” Linotype operators created “hot type,” typing in stories that created metal, reusable slugs that were used to create newspaper pages. (Gazette archives)

1973 — Electric typewriters replace manual typewriters, an interim step before newsroom desktop computers are installed.

Nov. 1, 1975 — The first Saturday morning Gazette is published.

July 7, 1977 — The Gazette’s letterpress is replaced by an offset press, the latest innovation in printing.

July 19, 1979 — The paper changes its name to The Gazette, reflecting the paper’s regional and statewide coverage.

June 29, 1981 — The Gazette becomes a morning paper.

1981 — The Gazette opens an Iowa City Bureau at 2 Rocky Shore Dr.

July 4, 1982 — Publication of a weekly Neighbors section begins. It is incorporated into the Community section in March 2003.

1982-83 — The Gazette buys the Spencer and Cherokee daily newspapers and the weeklies in Storm Lake and Alta in 1983, selling them in 1986.

Sept. 8, 1984 — Iowa Farmer Today begins publication as a statewide weekly. It is sold in 2004.

1986 — An employee stock ownership plan is created, with Gazette employees holding about 44 percent of the company’s stock as part of a retirement plan.

1987 — The Gazette opens a commercial printing division to print the Daily Iowan, the student newspaper at the University of Iowa, and other commercial orders.

April 1987 — The Gazette becomes one of the first newspapers in the nation to offer a telephone news service — CITYLINE — to supplement traditional news coverage.

June 15, 1989 — The Gazette acquires the Community News Advertiser, a weekly publication in Coralville.

August 1994 — The Gazette launches FYIowa, an online bulletin board service. It becomes GazetteOnline.com in October 1995 and is now TheGazette.com.

Aug. 21, 1995 — The Gazette and KCRG-TV9 move their Iowa City office to 301 E. Market St.

July 1999 — The Gazette begins regular use of a new, three-story Goss Universal 70 press at Color Web Printers, a new printing facility at 4700 Bowling St. SW. In January 2000, it is printing 3 million Sunday comic sections for King Features Syndicate.

Regular use of the new Goss Universal 70 printing press began in July 1999 at Color Web Printers, 4700 Bowling St. SW. The press — three stories tall and three-quarters of a block long,-- weighed more than 386 tons. (Gazette archives)

Sept. 11, 2001 — The Gazette publishes an extra to report the terrorist attacks on the United States; 75,000 copies are printed and sold on street corners for 50 cents each.

The Gazette printed an extra the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, after the terrorist attacks; 75,000 copies were sold on street corners. (Gazette archives)

Nov. 25, 2004 — The Gazette’s e-edition launches, offering the first digital Gazette subscriptions.

Feb. 1, 2005 — The Gazette and KCRG-TV9 move their Iowa City office to Old Capitol Town Center. It closes in October 2018.

A Nesper Sign worker guides a new sign into place atop the Gazette building at Fifth Street and Third Avenue on March 2007 at Fifth Street and Third Avenue SE in Cedar Rapids. The old sign, shown sitting on the ground, was installed in 1974. (Gazette archives)

The Gazette newsroom is shown Dec. 18, 2007, on the second floor of 500 Third Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids. (Gazette archives)

June 2008 — The Gazette and GazetteOnline provide coverage of the “Epic Flood” from its downtown office, relying on generator power for almost a month. The flood coverage wins the national award for deadline reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.

2012 — The Gazette Company transitions to a 100 percent employee-owned news operation.

The Gazette building at 500 Third Ave. SE as it appeared in December 2012 in downtown Cedar Rapids. (Gazette archives)

October 2016 — The Gazette hosts its first Iowa Ideas Conference in Cedar Rapids. The project is honored with the Iowa Newspaper Association’s Bill Monroe Innovation Award in 2017.

Dec. 2, 2016 — The Gazette buys the Fairfield Ledger, Mount Pleasant News and Washington Evening Journal, and their free weekly publications, from Inland Media Co. In 2019, the Southeast Iowa Union regional paper is formed, publishing four time s a week, with the individual titles publishing one day a week.

Jan. 1, 2017 — Folience, The Gazette’s parent company, is formed to diversify the company beyond media holdings.

Aug. 10, 2020 — Gazette operations shift to Color Web Printers after a derecho knocks out the city’s power grid. The facility’s large generator powers the newsroom for two weeks and the big press for 50 days. Not a single edition is missed.

Editors, reporters and photographers work in a makeshift newsroom set up at Color Web Printers on Aug. 11, 2020, the day after a hurricane-force derecho knocked out power throughout Linn County. The Gazette, making use of the printing facility’s large, diesel-powered generator, didn’t miss a day of publishing the paper or updating its website with the latest on the disaster. (Gazette archives)

August 2020 — Gazette headquarters move to 116 Third St. SE from 500 Third Ave. SE, its headquarters for 95 years.

Aug. 24, 2021 — Color Web Printers closes, printing its last Gazette at the Bowling Street plant. Printing of the newspaper moves to Gannett Publishing Services in Des Moines, and the Goss press and building are sold.

April 2022 — Gazette Print Distribution Center opens at 5255 Rockwell Dr. NE.

May 5, 2022 — Folience, The Gazette’s parent company, is named Employee-Owned Company of the Year by the national ESOP Association.

May 2022 — The Gazette acquires the Clarion-Plainsman weekly newspaper, based in Richland, from Sycamore Media.

August 2022 — The Gazette buys four weekly newspapers from Gannett — the Belle Plaine Star Press Union, Marengo Pioneer Republican, Williamsburg Journal Tribune and the Poweshiek County Chronicle Republican. A month later, it buys the Iowa County-based Hometown Current.