The earliest newspaper in
Cottage Grove was the
Cottage Grove Leader, which was first published on July 15, 1889. It was printed in
Drain, Oregon using a military style press by E.P. Thorp, who at the time was publisher of the
Drian Echo established four years earlier. On October 12 of the same year, F. W. Chausse moved the paper's operations to Cottage Grove. Thorp bought out Chausse in 1895 and merged his two paper's together to form the
Echo-Leader. On November 30, 1895, during the height of a town feud, when the western side of town briefly changed their name to Lemati, the newspaper adopted both of the names
Cottage Grove and Lemati Echo Leader for a single run. Only one edition was printed after a two-and-a-half-month absence from the publication of the
Echo-Leader. When publication resumed, the
Cottage Grove and Lemati Echo-Leader shortened its name, and was stylized only as
The Leader. Thorp died in February 1897 and the paper was taken over by L. F. Wooley, who changed the name back to the
Leader. C. W. Wallace became the paper's owner four years later and he was followed by W. C. Conner in 1903. He sold it a year later to A. Clifford Gage, who that same year sold the paper to a cooperation owned by several local businessmen. In 1905, the paper changed to a semi-weekly and was renamed to the
Lane County Leader. Two years later the owners bought the
Bohemia Nugget, originally established as the
Messenger in 1897
, and absorbed it into the
Leader. C. J. Howard established the
Western Oregon in 1905. He sold it to D. W. and I. S. Bath in 1908. Lew A. Cates became the new proprietor and changed its name to the
Cottage Grove Sentinel on Oct. 2, 1909. Elbert Bede purchased
The Sentinel on Sept. 11, 1911. He and W. H. Tyrrell, owner of
The Leader, merged their two papers together in July 1915. Bede acquired full-ownership of the
Cottage Grove Sentinel in October 1915 after buying out Tyrrell. He operated the paper for a quarter-century until he sold his ownership stake in 1936 to Judge Leonard S. Godard, who was a former associate justice on the
Supreme Court of the Philippines. A. W. Shofstall maintained his 20% ownership stake at the time. Two years later both men sold the paper to W. C. Martin. His family operated the
Sentinel until selling it in 1961 to
Elmo Smith who co-owned the Democrat-Herald Publishing Co., which published the
Albany Democrat-Herald.
Capital Cities purchased the company in 1980, which itself was acquired by
The Walt Disney Company in 1995. Disney sold its Oregon newspapers to
Lee Enterprises in 1997. Lee sold the
Cottage Grove Sentinel to
News Media Corporation in 2006, who in turn sold it to
Country Media, Inc. in 2023. == See also ==