In 1897, M. P. Stephans founded the
Newport Pilot. Stephans was previously the editor of the
Hillyard Headlight. He sold the
Pilot in April 1899 and then purchased a new printing outfit to set up
Juliaetta, Idaho. The new publisher was the Pilot Publishing Co., who changed the paper's name to the
Newport Minor in May 1889. At other points the paper was called the
Priest River Pilot and
Newport News. The
Miner suspended publication in September 1899. Brothers Warren E. and Charles M. Talmadge took over the printing plant in Newport and restarted the
Newport Miner. Fred L. Wolf acquired the paper from the Talmadge family in 1907 and ran it for 35 years. Because of his efforts, the
Miner had an outsized influence in the early 20th century. Wolf was elected to the
Washington State Legislature with a strong majority in 1918. As publisher, he championed the
Good Roads Movement, the creation of
Pend Oreille County and construction of the
Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge. Wolf sold the paper in 1945 to Freeman S. Frost. followed by Jim Hubbart in 1977 and then Fred Willenbrock in 1986. Fred and Susan Willenbrock sold the paper in 2015 to J. Louis Mullen, whose brother's own
Mullen Newspaper Company. == References ==