Newspaper Publications for Osage and Phelps Counties

1. Osage County Leader (Chamois, 1872–1879)
2. Osage County Volksblatt (Westphalia,1899–1917)
3. Unterrified Democrat (Linn, 1866-Current)
4. Meta Herald (Meta, 1902–1973)
5. The Rolla Herald (Rolla,1869–1953)
6. Chamois Liberalist (Chamois,1879–1888)
7. Freeburg Enterprise (Freeburg,1904–1914)
8. News of Osage County (Chamois,1916–1958)

In the 13th edition of the “Osage County Leader”, dated Friday, January 28th, 1876, the reader is introduced to a plethora of different articles and stories. This particular edition begins with two stories, one of them being a poem, the other being a short Hans Christian Anderson story. The specific choice of author could allude to the German heritage of the residents of Chamois in the 1870s. Then it breaks into foreign fashion news, personal and political news, and generally interesting news stories. One section references the manufacturing of tea in the south, one section is devoted to women, and another dedicated to kids. A few of the news stories refer to German news, which demonstrates the want of the German immigrants to stay in touch with world news. It also shows their family and agriculture based lifestyles.

The 11th edition of the Rolla Herald announces the end of the first world war on the 7th of November 1918. Its prominence on the front page demonstrates its significance to the population of Rolla. The rest of the page is taken up with the results of the 1918 election, and the distribution of house and senate seats. One of the more significant parts of it is the section where it says that a black man was elected to the Missouri state legislature. It says that Saint Louisans, who elected William M. Riley, honored themselves in doing so, demonstrating a level of respect and tolerance for African Americans. This could be because German Americans haven’t adopted the skin color based racism of the southern and northern of the U.S. This paper clearly appeals to not only German Americans, but all Americans, despite the fact that a potentially high portion of Rolla’s residents could’ve been German at the time.