By Charlie Warner
Argus Editor
Smalltown Americana has experienced drastic changes during the past 50 years. Back before most of us living in the Heartland had heard of the Beatles, JFK, or color TVs, our downtown business districts were lined with small "Mom and Pop" retail stores. The big chain or box stores hadnít made their debuts yet.

And if you needed to purchase something at the neighborhood store, but didnít have enough money, the cashier pulled out a pad and wrote down a charge slip instead of sliding a credit card through a scanner, as has become all too common a practice now.

The weekly newspaper industry has seen some significant changes as well. As the small retail stores began to disappear along main streets, the amount of potential advertising, which is the financial lifeblood of a weekly newspaper, diminished. As more local "Mom and Pop" retail stores went out of business, the single proprietor-type newspapers began to consolidate with neighboring communities to make ends meet. Larger publishing companies started buying up the smaller weeklies, and newspaper groups or chains are now as commonplace as the discount chains.

The Caledonia Argus was bought up by a newspaper group nearly a decade ago. When the sale of the Argus from Tom and Angela Murphy to ECM Publishers, Inc. was announced, Iím sure concerns were voiced that the local newspaper had been swallowed up by a large Twin Cities-based corporation, and that the "community" part of Caledoniaís weekly newspaper would be a thing of the past. Fortunately, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Originally ECM stood for East Central Minnesota Newspapers. The company was founded by former Governor Elmer L. Anderson in 1976. Anderson started with one weekly newspaper, and in the past three decades ECM has grown to include 24 publications, the majority being weekly newspapers serving metro-area suburbs and rural out-state communities.

ECM no longer stands for East Central Minnesota Newspapers. It stands for "Every Community Matters," and the company is totally committed to its mission statement.

ECM has established a Community Affairs Council (CAC), made up of representatives from various publications in its group. Each year the CAC doles out hundreds of thousands of dollars to deserving non-profit organizations in the various communities it serves. Earlier this summer ECM, through the Caledonia Argus, donated $11,120 to six worthy organizations in the Caledonia area. They included: Camp Winnebago- $2,500; Houston County Care and Share- $2,000; Caledonia Green- $2,000; Semcac Food Shelf- $1,800; the Caledonia Arts Council- $1,500; and the Houston County Historical Society- $1,410.

Through ECMís CAC area councils, nearly 40,000 pounds of food was raised for food shelves that serve the communities ECM newspapers are located in. Here in Caledonia, monetary and food donations totaled 6,488.82 pounds during the food drive, which was completed on July 27. Through the efforts of the Argus staff, and the very generous folks living in the Caledonia area, this newspaper raised the second largest amount of food than any of the communities ECM publications serve. Last year the Argus raised the most. And many of those communities are more than 10 times the size of Caledonia!

That says a lot for the community of Caledonia, and it also says a lot about your local newspaper and the very dedicated staff at the Argus.

Elmer L. Anderson had a vision more than 30 years ago when he started publishing that first weekly newspaper in a community just north of the Twin Cities. That vision was to make sure "community" was and always would be the most important part of the term community newspaper. And it certainly appears as if his vision is alive and well in Caledonia.

Top of Page

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

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