After more than one-and-a-quarter centuries, The Stayton Mail is being discontinued as owner Gannett shifts its focus away from print media.
A Gannett spokesperson confirmed Aug. 17 the weekly newspaper’s publication would be suspended indefinitely after its final issue Sept. 14.
Michael Kane, Gannett senior vice president of strategic initiatives and operations, said this decision was “part of our company’s on-going digital transformation” and included other small-town publications such as The Silverton Appeal-Tribune.
The Mail had been published in recent years through the Statesman Journal, also a Gannett property, and Kane said Statesman reporters will remain committed to “reliable, accurate, and community-focused news.”
However, when asked if the Statesman would continue covering Stayton and surrounding communities, a Gannett spokesperson said that decision was waiting on development of their larger coverage strategy.
The Stayton Mail was founded in February of 1896 by E. F. Bennett, according to research by George Stanley Turnbull in his 1939 monograph History of Oregon Newspapers. The Stayton Mail was not the first newspaper in the community, as this title was claimed by The Stayton Times six years earlier, but it would have the greatest staying power.
In 1915 The Mail consolidated with The Stayton Standard, founded the year before. By 1937, publisher Lawrence Spraker took the helm and led The Mail until 1970.
The paper then passed to owner and publisher Frank Crow, who in 1983 brought The Mail, The Silverton Appeal Tribune and Mount Angel News together under publishing group North Santiam Newspapers, Inc. But the 1980s were not kind to local papers and in 1990 Crow was forced to sell during bankruptcy proceedings to the Statesman Journal, which at that time had been owned by Gannett for 17 years.
Gerry Aboud, former Stayton mayor and an amateur historian of print media, said there was a distinct difference between the quality of news in The Mail before and after the sale to Gannett.
“They were a good local newspaper that reflected a lot of the views of the community,” he said. “…. They had lots of local articles, they had letters to the editor, they had an editorial page. That to me was The Stayton Mail.
“To say that I’m sorry to see it going is an understatement,” he said. “But I don’t care about the current Stayton Mail.”
Aboud said The Mail eventually published more and more national content, particularly as Gannett began prioritizing syndication of articles through its USA Today network.
Eventually it reached its current state of mostly regional and national content, often headlines Aboud said he has already seen elsewhere.
Current Stayton Mayor Hank Porter said Statesman Journal reporter Bill Poehler still manages to cover the area, but that reporting on Stayton hasn’t been the same as when The Mail was locally owned and published.
Porter said he is optimistic there is still a future for print journalism in Stayton, and said a newspaper like The Canyon Weekly, focused on the Santiam Canyon and owned by Mt. Angel Publishing, Inc., might find readers in the area. An online-only publication might struggle, he added, because many residents can’t afford internet or struggle to trust what they read online.
During the ‘90s and into the early 2000s, The Mail was led by several individuals who left Gannett to form Mt. Angel Publishing, Inc. in 2004. They put their energies into creating Our Town. They included publisher Paula Mabry and long-time advervising executive Sharon Frichtl.
