Final Editions of Central Otago Papers

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26781, 26 May 1948, Page 7

Final Editions of Central Otago Papers

Special Reporter. CLYDE, May 25. The Dunstan Times went to press at Clyde on Monday of this week for the last time after 86 years’ continuous publication. The last issue of the Alexandra Herald will come off the press to-morrow. The Lake County Mail, formerly the Lake Wakatip Mail, also ceased publication this week. These three Central Otago newspapers will be incorporated in a new publication, registered as the Central Otago News, which will be published twice a week with the first issue on June 1.

Mr Harold E. Stevens, aged 71, set the last line of the last'column of the Dunstan Times on Monday morning in the same way as he has set columns upon columns for many years in the past—every line set by hand from the cases of type. Mr Stevens began reporting on this goldfield’s newspaper at the age of 16, and he has been manager and editor of the Dunstan Times for the last 48 years, as well as compositor and printer. The first owner of the Dunstan Times was Mr J. Cope, who was followed by Mr George Fache, Mr R. Pyke, Mr R. S. Gilkison, and Mr Stevens, who acquired the paper in 1900. Seventy-one years ago, Mr Stevens’s birth notice appeared in the Dunstan Times. On Monday morning this week, Mr Stevens set the birth notice of his grandson, Kerry Lennel, who was born last Saturday to Mr and Mrs Geoffrey Stevens. Formerly of eight pages, the Dunstan Times was reduced in size in re-

cent years to four pages because of the shortage of paper. It served a wide area in the Vincent and Maniototo districts, the population of which fluctuated during the gold mining era, but is now stable with farming and fruit growing as the principal activities. The circulation of the Dunstan Times remained constant at 600 for many years. The press on which the Dunstan Times was printed was powered by a water engine driven by pressure from a one-inch water-head piped from the nearby mountainside. Although the Dunstan Times was a one-man newspaper, Mr Stevens received assistance one day a week from his son, Mr Geoffrey Stevens. For the last eight years, the Alexandra Herald has been produced by Mr Stevens's two sons, Messrs Geoffrey and Rex. Stevens. During the war, Mr Stevens himself, with the assistance of a woman helper, produced both the Dunstan Times artd the Alexandra Herald.