About The Lancaster ledger. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1852-1905
Lancaster, S.C. (1852-1905)

The Lancaster News, Lancaster Enterprise and The Lancaster Ledger

The triweekly Lancaster News has delivered the news to the citizens of Lancaster County, located in the north-central part of South Carolina, since 1905. The News, like Lancaster County itself, owes no small debt to textile magnate Leroy Springs, the founder of Springs Mills (now known as Springs Industries). When Leroy Springs opened the first cotton mill in Lancaster in 1896, the majority of residents were scraping out a living as sharecroppers. In time, the textile mills would eclipse small farms as Lancaster County's main avenue of employment, a trend that continued throughout the 20th century.

In the early 1900s, three newspapers--the Lancaster Enterprise, Lancaster Ledger, and Lancaster Review - competed for patronage by local residents. The semiweekly Lancaster Ledger, established by Robert Smith Bailey on February 17, 1852, was the oldest and most venerated paper. The weekly Lancaster Enterprise, launched in the spring of 1891, "presented an unusually handsome mechanical appearance," in the words of the Yorkville (South Carolina) Enquirer. The weekly Lancaster Review, a continuation of the Lancaster Carolina Review, was founded sometime around 1880. According to Rowell's American Newspaper Directory, the Lancaster Enterprise, Lancaster Ledger, and Lancaster Review each circulated fewer than 1,000 copies per issue.

By 1905, Leroy Springs and his associates had grown concerned that Lancaster lacked a stable newspaper. They constituted themselves as the Lancaster Publishing Company and purchased the Ledger, Enterprise, and Review, which were merged into the Lancaster News. The first issue of the Lancaster News appeared on October 4, 1905. Charles Thorn Connors, the former editor of the Lancaster Review, was retained as editor.

The Lancaster News has since established itself as an institution in the community. During World War II, the Lancaster Publishing Company issued a special edition for GIs, also called the Lancaster News. In 1947, the Tri-County Publishing Company, owned by Elliot White Springs (president of Springs Cotton Mills and Leroy Springs' son), acquired the News. Under the leadership of Paul League, the News transitioned in the 1970s from a semiweekly to a triweekly publishing schedule. In 2004, the Lancaster News upgraded its printing facilities and launched a free weekly paper, the Lancaster Carolina Gateway, serving the residents of an unincorporated community in Lancaster County called Indian Land. The Lancaster News is currently owned by Landmark, a company based in Norfolk, Virginia, that also manages two other South Carolina newspapers, the Chester News and Reporter and Pageland Progressive-Journal.

Provided by: University of South Carolina; Columbia, SC