Newspaper Western Viking begins publishing on June 1, 1961.

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On June 1, 1961, the newspaper Western Viking, serving Seattle's Norwegian community, begins publishing in the Ballard neighborhood. The month before, in May 1961, Western Viking acquired the Washington Posten, a Norwegian-Danish weekly published in Seattle since 1889.

The Western Viking is today (2003) the largest Norwegian newspaper in the United States. It is a weekly bilingual newspaper published under the editorship of Kathleen Knudsen who succeeded her father, Alf Knudsen. The paper subsumes a number of previous newspapers: Decorah Posten, Ved Arnen, Minneapolis-Tidende, Minnesota Posten, Washington Posten, Norrona, and Skandinaben.

The paper's offices are located at 5420B Barnes Avenue NW, Seattle.

Sources:
Polk's Seattle City Directory, 1961/62 (R. L. Polk and Co., 1961/62), 94; Marlene Mitchell, "Washington Newspapers: Territorial and State: a Bibliography and Checklist," MA thesis in Communications, 1964, p. 171, 179; University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; Washington State Union List of Newspapers on Microfilm ed. by Gayle Palmer (Olympia: Washington State Library, 1991), p. 390. 425; University of Washington Library Catalog; Nordic Heritage Museum archives; Western Viking Website (http://www.westernviking.com).

By Greg Lange, July 04, 2001

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This essay made possible by:
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