I know, I know, I have promised an open house of our renovated 108-year old building for well over two years now. Many of you have witnessed my sheepish reply since we moved back to Main Street after the 2020 fire first hand. It goes something like this: “When is your open house Kristi? We’d love to take a look at what you’ve done with the building after the fire. It looks beautiful from the outside.” After a thorough hemming and hawing about my weekly deadline and needing to make one more update to the office, I usually change the topic and ask the questioner how they are doing and what they’ve been up to as of late.
To all who have encountered that — I’m sorry. I’m not sure exactly why, but I didn’t feel quite ready to host an open house — the stars simply weren’t aligning for that type of gathering in the newspaper building.
With that out of the way, first of all, and most importantly, I want to thank you for your patience. I truly appreciate your interest and I promise I wasn’t putting you off — well, at least not intentionally.
Secondly, I’d like to invite you to stop by this Saturday, December 2 from 2 - 5 p.m. The True Dakotan is part of the Christmas Tour of Homes and Businesses and we can’t wait to welcome you inside one of Wessington Springs Main Street’s oldest buildings. We look forward to seeing you and enjoying some snacks, refreshments and a look at the building’s rich history together. We also can’t wait to show you the finished product of the renovated-just-last-year historic table that appears on page one.
In the meantime, below, for all of you history buffs out there, we included a history of the building, sourced from A History of Jerauld County 1909-1961. Thank you to my Mom, Delia Atkinson for taking on the research and for being the glue that holds this place together!
Thanks again for your patience, your readership and support. We hope you can join us this Saturday, can’t wait to see you at our place on Main!
1915-1916 two new brick buildings were constructed on Main St. One for the Republican and two other office sites, and the other by W.F. Chandler for an automobile sale and repair building.
1917 Cripsin J. Webb, editor of the Wessington Springs Republican was called into the service of the United States. He made efforts to sell the paper but was unable to do so before he had to leave. Mrs. Webb took over the publication duties for a few weeks and was at last able to secure H.W. Prentice as publisher. Prentice ran the business until late in December when Geo. Schlosser, an old time newspaper man well known throughout the state purchased the paper and became editor.
1921 a serious fire at Lane destroyed the plant of the Lane Pioneer News. Mechanical work on the paper was done at the office of the Wessington Springs Republican until the Lane owner L.E. Giles could replace the plant.
1925 George Schlosser who had been editor and publisher of the Wessington Springs Republican since 1917 sold the paper to Lloyd P. Tamblyn of Miller and Mr. Tamblyn took charge of the publication of the paper on September 1, 1925.
1930 March 6, 1930 the Lane Pioneer News published its last copy after 24 years of existence. Publisher L.E. Giles sold his subscription list and “good will” to Lloyd P. Tamblyn, publisher of the Wessington Springs Republican and the Republican agreed to publish a Lane section hereafter.
1948 Tamblyn sold the Republican subscription list to the publisher of The Independent, C.J. Webb and for the first time in more than 65 years Wessington Springs had only one newspaper. Tamblyn continued in the printing business and printed for the State of South Dakota and others under the name Tamblyn Printing.
1961 With the death of Lloyd Tamblyn on February 24, 1961, a change in management of the Tamblyn Printing Co. was turned over to the long-time assistant to Mr. Tamblyn Everett Rumelhart and another employee,KendallHansen. The two men leased the printing business from Mrs. Tamblyn for a year until they were able to purchase it.
1963 Everett Rumelhart bought out Kendall Hansen and continued to run the printing business.
1973 Everett Rumelhart sold Tamblyn Printing to Dennis (Duke) and Craig Wenzel. The Wenzel brothers started a new newspaper in November 1975 named True Dakotan.
2015 After 40 years of publishing the True Dakotan, the Wenzel family sold the newspaper to Kristi Hine. During the past eight years of newspaper ownership, Hine has steered the legacy newspaper forward, embracing the present-day evolution of news media outlets. Celebrating a robust readership of both the print and e-edition, Hine continues to enhance both print and digital product offerings to ensure a solid future for the True Dakotan for many years to come.