The Chronicle

About The Chronicle

The Chronicle is proud to be Columbia County's oldest newspaper and oldest business.

The story of the county's leading newspaper began in 1881 when the Oregon Mist, which eventually became the St. Helens Mist started publication in St. Helens.

The St. Helens Mist combined on April 7, 1933, with a relative newcomer to the newspaper community, the St. Helens Sentinel, which had begun publication in 1926.

For more than three decades, the combined newspaper, now called The Sentinel-Mist, published every Friday. Subscribers paid $2 a year to have the paper deliver to their door. At one time, the Sentinel-Mist claimed to have the largest circulation of any weekly in Oregon.

In 1936, Paul S. Paulson started the St. Helens Chronicle - a single sheet newspaper - and distributed it free of charge every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

The Chronicle grew into a full sized newspaper and competed with the Sentinel Mist. By the 1950s, The Chronicle published twice a week and charged an annual subscription rate of $2.50.

On July 1, 1968, The Chronicle and The Sentinel-Mist merged.  Called The Sentinel-Mist Chronicle it became the only newspaper in St. Helens and was published twice weekly, on Wednesday and Satruday.

The name eventually changed to The Chronicle and Sentinel-Mist, then consolidated to The Chronicle on March 25, 2009. In June 2010 the current owners, Country Media, launched the first web version of The Chronicle, thechronicleonline.com.

Throughout the decades and centuries, a number of owners, publishers and editors have presided over The Sentinel, The Mist, The Chronicle, The Sentinel-Mist, The Sentinel-Mist Chronicle, The Chronicle and Sentinel-Mist and The Chronicle.

Ira B. Hyde was the editor and publisher of The Mist's final publication, March 31, 1933.

When The St. Helens Sentinel-Mist came to be, Jessica Longston was its president and publisher, Bernice Brownlow was the secretary/treasurer and Lee Coe was the editor.

Paul S. Paulson started The St. Helens Chronicle in 1936, selling it in 1968 to Gilbert and Eldridge Crouse. The Crouses merged The Chronicle with the Sentinel-Mist, then published by Ted Natt, to form a single paper.

The Crouses sold the newspaper to Earl and Irene Parsons in the 1980s. Greg Cohen was The Chronicle's editor.

Their daughter, Pamela Parsons, took over operation of the newspaper and sold it to Steve and Carol Hungerford, owners of Country Media, on Feb. 2, 2009.