By Jane Palen

I donít think I would be wrong if I claimed that thereís no one in Caledonia who remembers a time when The Argus office was not at 314 West Lincoln St. Street. For the past 93 years, the Argus has been published weekly from this office. The methods and operations of the newspaper have changed tremendously in that time, and the building has been modified to keep up with those changes. An addition was built onto the east side of the building in 1966.

When we began contemplating more changes to increase comfort and efficiency, it became apparent that it wouldnít be easily done! Another location became available, and we decided to look into the possibility of renting a different office. It was a good fit, so we made the necessary arrangements. At the end of the month, weíll be moving to 314 West Lincoln, the former offices of Nelson Construction.

If thereís one thing that the present office provides that we wonít get at the new place, itís a sense of history. We spend our days surrounded by newspaper history.

In our back room, thereís an old smelter once used for melting the lead used to make printing plates. Although hand-set type has not been used for many, many years, thereís still some of it around our offices. I wonder what those men, who had to read upside down and backwards to get the letters in place, would think of us today. We can correct a mistake with a simple keystroke, and rearrange entire articles with a ìcut and pasteî command.

In another back room there are printing ìstonesîsaturated with decades of ink; they must weigh a ton. The floor is reinforced with concrete in several places, necessary to bear the weight of a 13-ton press once used to print the paper. Smaller presses were in use for print jobs. Newspapers depended on printing jobs to help supplement their advertising income. I found samples of some old printing jobs recently. They included napkins from a 1962 wedding, a band concert program from 1957, a 1967-68 football schedule. These are things that were before my time here, but through them I feel connected to the newspaperís past.

Large light tables were used in later years when we pasted up the paper by hand. They took up a lot of room, and hours would be spent hunched over the pages, lining up the copy and headlines. We sit at our computers to do that now. At least nothing falls off the page, and we donít forget the pictures.

Children who visit The Argus office usually notice the holes in the floor. They were drilled after a fire in the upstairs apartment occupied by the Ryan family. The holes allowed the water used to put out the fire to drain into the basement.

I first started at The Argus in 1984. One room that I spent plenty of time in was the darkroom. At that time, all the copy and headlines had to be processed through the photo processor. It was a busy place, with negatives and strips of copy being developed and photos being printed. Iíll never forget how hot is was at fair time when we had to develop about 20 rolls of film.

Today we use digital cameras; we have no use for a darkroom any more. The equipment is gone, and we have cleaning supplies in there now.

When I started working here, there was a city parking lot to the west, and Winnebago Software was to the eastówith all 6 of its employees. We took our cigarette breaks together behind the buildings. I quit smoking 18 years ago this summeróit doesnít seem possible that itís been that long.

Weíll be leaving a lot of history behind us. Within these walls, several generations of newspaper people have recorded the happenings in and around Caledonia. It may be just a building, but its a building with a history, with ink-stained floors and yellowed newspapers in the back room.

Weíre looking forward to our new place. But at the same time, weíll be thinking about all the memories, and the news, that came out of this place. We may not have the physical connection to the past anymore, but weíll always do our best to respect the history and carry on the traditions of all those people with the ink-stained hands who made the present possible.

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Caledonia Argus
314 West Lincoln St.
P.O. Box 227
Caledonia, MN 55921-0227
507/724-3475

E-Mail: editor.argus@ecm-inc.com