Off the Editor’s Desk – 8-9-2017

See you at the Minnesota State Fair!

This is going to be the 25th year of my involvement with the Minnesota Newspapers Museum on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.

This year marks the museum’s 30th year and the Minnesota State Fair’s 150th anniversary. The Museum is located in the 4-H building on Cosgrave Avenue near what was once Machinery Hill.

The museum displays an operating weekly newspaper from the 1930 using hot lead as the modem to print on a sheet of paper to produce the newspaper. This was a common site in most small towns of American until the 1970s.

I invite those who have not been to the museum and those who have not visited it for several years to come and see all the new items of newspaper history and why the news media is called the “Fourth Estate” of the government and see the new displays about the first amendment.

You could learn that the “Fourth Estate” is a segment of society that wields an indirect but significant influence on society even though it is not a formally recognized part of the political system and the most commonly recognized part of the “Fourth Estate” is the news media. The first three estates are all part of our government, the legislative branch, executive branch and the judicial branch.

The first amendment of the Constitution guarantees citizens of the United States all the rights and privileges we enjoy. Those five freedoms are: Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly and Petition. One of the messages at the museum is to inform visitors about the First Amendment, with the First Amendment, printed on a business card using a hand operated printing press. Ask for a copy.

The machinery to produce the daily edition of the newspaper is all in operation for visitors to see and ask questions and take home a copy of the daily newspaper, called the Maynard News. One of the most asked questions is how the name of the paper came to be called the Maynard News? It is because, 30 some years ago, the owners of the newspaper printed in Maynard, Minnesota had switched to the new method of printing and had old letterpress equipment that they donated to the Minnesota Newspaper Foundation with the idea of preserving it in working order so that the letterpress process could be viewed by future generations.

Of course the people that once were available to operate this old equipment are dying off and there are only a few of us old timers left that were trained in the operation and maintenance of this equipment. The museum relies on volunteers to operate it and each year new and current volunteers are invited to a training day to get hands on experience operating this old equipment. The training day was July 22nd and some 24 new volunteers came to get some training. Some of them have a background in the printing industry and others are just willing to learn about it and be able to explain it to fair visitors during the 12 day run of the Minnesota State Fair which opens on August 24th.

One of the pieces of equipment is a 1903 Linotype, which is a molten lead casing machine that set type for the newspaper in Glenwood City from 1929 until 1976. This summer that machine has been updated with a glass-topped magazine that will allow visitors to better view how it works.

Each year the museum hosts over 20,000 visitors and we expect more visitors this year because of a new Ferris Wheel that will be located near the museum. That Big Wheel is 156 feet high, and that should give riders a view of both downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Thanks for reading!     ~Carlton