Newspaper museum returns early Molson and Oroville editions to area

Janet Barstow, of the Roy M. Chatters Newspaper and Printing Museum, delivered three boxes of historic newspapers to the Molson Museum.

By Gazette-Tribune • August 4, 2025 12:00 pm
Donna St. John, who helped deliver the old <em>Molson Leader</em> and <em>Oroville Gazette</em> issues to the Molson Schoolhouse Museum with museum volunteer Joanie Emry Raymond and Janet Barstow, manager of the Roy M. Chatters Newspaper and Printing Museum. Salley Bull/submitted photos
Donna St. John, who helped deliver the old Molson Leader and Oroville Gazette issues to the Molson Schoolhouse Museum with museum volunteer Joanie Emry Raymond and Janet Barstow, manager of the Roy M. Chatters Newspaper and Printing Museum. Salley Bull/submitted photos

MOLSON — Just another two sisters on a summer road trip through Eastern Washington probably won’t mean much to most people. Everyone takes sightseeing trips. But this sightseeing trip held a lot of meaning to others as the sisters delivered vintage 1900s newspapers to various museums in small communities, including the Molson Museum, a partner of the Okanogan County Historical Society.

Janet Barstow, manager of Roy M. Chatters Newspaper and Printing Museum, Palouse and her sister, Donna St. John, Wasilla, Alaska, delivered three boxes of historic newspapers Thursday afternoon, July 31, to the Molson Museum. One box held early 1900 to 1914 issues of the Molson Leader, a four-page locally printed newspaper. Two boxes contained early, if not the earliest, issues of the Oroville Gazette, up to 1938. Barstow has delivered about 100 boxes of small community newspapers since early 2000. For her, this was just another trip delivering old newspapers to others. It is important to Barstow that these seemingly lost histories are returned to their origin.

Barstow related some history on the Chatter’s Newspaper and Printing Museum, a partner of the Whitman County Historical Society. It displays a variety of early printing equipment, like Linotypes that would make hot pot metal “slugs” one line of type at a time. It was a vast improvement over individual letters placed into a frame for the printing press. The Chatters has various printing presses, letter trays, font types, plus many newspapers from small Washington towns.

Roy Chatters, a former WSU professor, collected the newspapers from the university library after they had been microfilmed and surplused. In 1976, his friend, J.B. West, donated a building on Main Street, Palouse, to house Chatters’ huge inventory of historical printing equipment and newspapers. The unusual flood of 1996 ruined buildings on Main Street, including the museum. Some things were damaged, but with the donation of funds, materials and labor, the Museum was rebuilt and reopened 2003.

These old newspapers record the communities’ interest in civic and school news like sports and graduations, weddings and funerals, editorials on the day’s concerns and the latest farm equipment. The Molson Leader shows the Highlands’ families’ histories in weekly editions. The Oroville Gazette shows the growing apple industry, the early irrigation project, touts Osoyoos Lake’s ideal apple climate, new car models, train schedules and latest fashions and grocery prices.

In future issues of the Gazette-Tribune, Gail Emry See and her sister Luanne Emry Billings, will highlight snippets of history in their columns. Joanie Emry Raymond, who used to write the Hilltop Comments and Gail and Luanne are daughters of Cleland Emry, the former publisher of the Oroville Gazette, later Gazette-Tribune.