Rockton-Roscoe News publishes first print edition in time for Fall Festival

Rockton-Roscoe News will release our first-ever print edition on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. About 2,000 copies of the eight-page special will be available at local businesses throughout Roscoe, Rockton, and South Beloit and at the Roscoe Lions Club Fall Festival. Please let us know if you want a stack for your business or storefront customers. Or you can download a digital PDF version.

At the Roscoe Lions Club Fall Festival, copies are available outside the bingo tent, at the entrance to the exhibitors tent, and at the Lions Festival Parade on Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023.

Also, you can pick up your copy at DeeDee's Main Street Coffee & Decor, Sophia's Restaurant, Talcott Free Library, North Suburban Library District,  Louie's Tap House, Prairie Hill Meats, Al’s Main Street Tap, Culver's, Pizza Ranch, Schnucks, Meijer, Piggly Wiggly, Kelly's Market, Casey's General Store, Fas Mart, Kwik Trip, CVS, Walgreens, and Homecare Pharmacy.

Some of the stories in this issue: an especially long version of our community calendar, the Fall Festival schedule and history, Hononegah football's Benson brothers, the Lions Club, the Stone Bridge Trail, Vintage Shop Hop, and links to up-to-date online coverage. It is printed in black ink on newsprint paper.

We also plan to publish a holiday print edition in November, in time for Rockton Christmas Walk and Hometown Holidays in Roscoe - probably in full color this time. Sponsors will be listed for free. Contact us to advertise in this special edition or call 815-408-0140. Besides 1/4 page, 1/2 page, and full-page ads, advertisers will receive our regular online advertising as well.

In April 2021, Rockton-Roscoe News began publishing daily local news online at roscoenews.com. Now our stories are read nearly 90,000 times a month, with 1,400 daily email subscribers in the Stateline area and more than 3,600 followers on Facebook.

At Rockton-Roscoe News, we like to say we are the first daily news outlet for Roscoe and Rockton in 185 years. The Herald began in Rockton in the 1870s, but on a weekly schedule. The Beloit Daily News began in the 1840s under another name, merged several times, became a daily in 1886, and in June 1995, became Wisconsin's first newspaper web site with local news updated daily.

The printing industry itself has a long history in Rockton. Herald editor Edson Carr wrote that the first paper mill was built after the race in Rockton was extended in 1851. The company later became known as the Beloit Corporation, whose property became a Superfund site. A "printing machine" was added later, all powered by "twenty-eight shares of the water power occupying lot number five on the water power plant" on the race in Rockton, parallel to the Rock River. Carr says that "for a number of years, the paper on which the Northwestern Christian Advocate was printed, was made in Rockton." (The Northwestern Christian Advocate was an official Methodist publication, founded in Chicago in 1852.)

Color newspaper printing is a relatively recent innovation. The New York Times printed its first front page color photo in 1997. For financial and technical reasons, newspapers didn't begin printing color photos regularly until the 1970s. A British publication, The Colored News, which featured colored illustrations, published only nine issues in 1855 before going out of business. The New York World published its first color supplement in 1893, especially cartoons, leading to the epithet "yellow journalism." The Daily Record in Scotland printed the first color news photo in June 1936, but it smudged easily. Being an online publication, we can feature color photos in every article, sometimes more than a dozen.