On May 17, 1889, the first issues of Washington Posten are distributed to Seattle's Norwegian and Danish population. In 1898, it boasts being the oldest Norwegian paper in Washington, with a circulation of 2,500. The weekly publication has a very long run. Its last issue is May 26, 1961, when it is sold to Western Viking.
The first issues of the paper were published by Frank Oleson, an immigrant from Trondheim, Norway. In 1890, the weekly's publisher was the Scandinavian Publishing Company, which was formed in March 1890. The officers included L. Hulsether, Nels Anderson, and Andrew Chilberg. In 1890, Washington Posten offices were downtown in the Chilberg block located on the east side of Front Street (1st Avenue) near Blanchard Street.
After moving to a number of locations near downtown Seattle, by the late 1910s, the offices had moved to the Seaboard Building. It remained at the northeast corner of 4th Avenue and Pike Street until it sold in 1961.
Sources:
Polk's Seattle City Directory, 1890 (R. L. Polk and Co., 1890), pp. 88, 94; Polk, 1898, p. 21; Polk, 1920, p. 2092; Polk, 1960, p. 309; Washington State Union List of Newspapers on Microfilm ed. by Gayle Palmer (Olympia: Washington State Library, 1991), p. 405; University of Washington Library Catalog; Odd S. Lovoll, "Washington Posten: A Window on a Norwegian-American Urban Community," paper presented at Conference on Scandinavian Immigration, Settlement, and Acculturation, University of Wisconsin, Madison, August 27-30, 1984, available at (http://www.naha.stolaf.edu/pubs/nas/volume31/vol31_07.htm#5). Note: This essay was modified on April 23, 2011, to correct the characterization of the newspaper, to add the exact date of first publication, to provide the name of its first publisher, and to supplement the sources.
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