Beginning October 25, 1906, Conklin had its own newspaper, The Conklin Enterprise.  Albert E. Barden served as the editor and publisher.  The subscription price was $1.00 per year, in advance.  For the price of $2.50 a year, you could subscribe to the Grand Rapids Herald, The Conklin Enterprise, Uncle Remus’s Home Magazine, Farm Press, The Fruit Belt, and Vicks Magazine.  In addition to these seven publications you would also receive World’s Events and The Home Herald for sixteen weeks.  The paper’s masthead carried the slogan, “The BEST Newspaper Published Between Grand Rapids and Muskegon.”

 

Published weekly, The Conklin Enterprise was delivered by second class mail to subscribers.  You could also purchase it at local businesses.  The newspaper carried news stories on the local, county, state and national levels.  It also contained a serial fiction story, several short stories, a Farm and Garden column, legal notices, cartoons, a market report, and advertising.  Although the majority of the advertising came from Conklin businesses, the paper also sold advertising to businesses in Berlin (Marne), Grand Rapids, Ravenna, and Sparta.

 

The Conklin Enterprise was purchased by The Ravenna Times in the late 1930s.  For several years after the purchase, the paper was called The Ravenna Times and Conklin Enterprise.  The first publisher of The Ravenna Times was Thomas Fryer Rogers.   After Roger’s Publishing Company, still owned by the Rogers family, was established, they continued to publish The Ravenna Times.  When Roger’s Publishing Company had a substantial fire, all of the archived copies of The Conklin Enterprise, The Ravenna Times and Conklin Enterprise, and The Ravenna Times were lost.

 

Three copies of The Conklin Enterprise were saved by the Edward Kelly family – the December 18, 1908, the August 4, 1911, and the December 7, 1911 editions.  If you are aware of additional copies of The Conklin Enterprise, please contact this website at Chester.History@verizon.net.