Will Hanks moved from Ohio to Montana to establish the
Sun River Sun in
Sun River, Montana. It was first published on February 14, 1884. A year later Hanks moved his printing plant to
Great Falls, Montana. Hanks sold the
Tribune in July 1887 to Jerry Collins. J.A. McKnight was installed as editor in 1892. A year later the paper was sold to its employees and McKnight was replaced by R.E. Gray. The paper's mortgage was soon foreclosed and the business was sold at auction for $5,000 to A.M. Scott of First National bank in July 1894. Phil A. Julien was then installed as editor. William McClure Bole purchased the paper in December 1894, and operated it with Oliver Sherman Warden until selling it to
William A. Clark in 1900. McClure then operated the
Bozeman Daily Chronicle. Clark sold the paper to W.G. Conrad in October 1904. McClure and Warden reacquired the
Tribune in April 1905. then succeeded at the
Tribune by his son Alexander Warden. Decades later O.C. Warden was inducted into the Montana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1958, followed by W.M. Bole in 1963. The Warden family sold the paper in 1965 to Tribune Co., owners of the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Decades later the
Cowles Media Company sold the
Tribune to
Gannett. The
Tribune launched a subsidiary company, River's Edge Printing in 2006; the latter printed for weekly newspapers on a Goss Community press. In July 2020, printing of the
Great Falls Tribune moved to the presses of the
Independent Record in
Helena. == Awards ==