Pipestone County Museum in Minnesota adds online newspapers

A news release in the Pipestone County Star from 11 April 2025 brings some welcome research news about free online newspapers. Pipestone County is in southwestern Minnesota, borders South Dakota, and is surrounded by several other Minnesota counties. The newspaper database currently holds the years 1879-1916 and the plan is to add additional years via Advantage Archives. The full story is at https://www.pipestonestar.com/articles/museum-launches-online-newspaper-archive/

One of my favorite parts of the story is this comment from the Museum’s Executive Director, “We don’t want to be gatekeepers of history,” Hoskins said. “We want to be enablers for people.” I hope they are still able to obtain some grants and that users keep contributing to the effort.

Search at https://www.pipestonestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Web-Archive.jpg. Some Pipestone newspapers are already digitized via the free Minnesota Historical Society’s newspaper hub. https://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/hub