By 1870 the rapidly growing
Central Minnesota town of St. Cloud already had a large German immigrant population. To meet the demand for news, publishers Peter Brick and Peter Kaiser printed two sample newspapers in December 1874. Copies were freely sent to all the names they could find on the
Stearns County tax rolls. Within weeks they had a paid circulation of over 800, nearly 40% of the city's population at the time. The paper was named after the state's official motto, ''
L'Étoile du Nord, "Star of the North", which had been adopted in 1861. The first extant issue of Der Nordstern'' is a four-page, six-column layout dated February 17, 1876. The paper concentrated on local and state news, correspondence, and general agricultural topics. It became a hub for community discussion and political debate, and also included literary features such as critical reviews of German books. This was unusual among German-language papers at the time, which were focusing primarily on national news and news from Germany. Demand for this content steadily increased and
Der Nordstern began publishing 12-page issues on September 22, 1898. Eventually it had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state north of
Minneapolis. By this time, the paper was being published in a 24-page, 4-column format. With the pressures of the
Great Depression and changing demographics, the last issue was published on August 27, 1931. At 57 years,
Der Nordstern had one of the longest runs of any German-language newspaper in Minnesota. == References ==