When a young attorney published the first edition of the Aroostook Republican on Jan. 14, 1880, Caribou citizens may have questioned their newspaper’s chance of success. After all, they may have reasoned, the town’s first newspaper survived for two years before being bought out by Presque Isle investors and moved across the town line.
As the years passed, however, it became clear that Samuel W. Mathews was indeed sincere in his efforts to establish and maintain a weekly newspaper in Caribou. Soon the memory of the North Star and its brief two-year stay faded and the Republican quickly gained public confidence and patronage.
Over 130 years and nine owners later, the Aroostook Republican continues as a weekly newspaper committed to the people and news of Caribou and the surrounding communities including Woodland, New Sweden, Limestone and Stockholm.
“It is our goal to create an accurate and appealing weekly newspaper that tells the ongoing story of Caribou and north central Aroostook County. If someone who had never visited Caribou were to read just one edition of the Aroostook Republican; we would like to believe they would get a real feel for the community and its inhabitants,” said Mark Putnam, managing editor.
To do this, the five-person staff must reach out to readers and advertisers on a daily basis to gather information in all its many forms for use in the newspaper. We also rely on community members to submit items of interest or tips to follow up on. Each issue is a mix of the planned and the unplanned. Reporters do not have to know everything; they just have to know how to find out.
Today the Republican is produced by reporters Natalie De La Garza and Lisa Wilcox, sports writer Kevin Sjoberg, advertising representative Gayle Jackson, and receptionist Lisa Anderson.
Jack Faulkner, former editor, summed up the role of a community newspaper this way in a 1994 interview. “The Republican has been around a lot longer than we have, and it’ll still be here a long time after we’re gone. The editor and staff are just the temporary custodians of this newspaper.”
