This is a piece from our Museum Director, Billie DeLancey, originally published in The Johnstown Breeze on September 4, 2025. Enjoy this story, and keep an eye on the paper for the newest stories shaping our community.
A local newspaper is the beating heart of its community. Often the most factual account and near complete record of a town’s development over time, it becomes a living scrapbook holding within its printed pages the details of its community’s struggles and triumphs, thus capturing its legacy shaped over time through each successive generation.
Often, it’s called “the first rough draft of history.”
The Johnstown Breeze is no exception, and the Johnstown Historical Society (JHS) is on a mission to raise the money to make that historical record available for free to the public.
As stewards of mining and preserving Johnstown’s unique history, the JHS is working with Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (CHNC) and The Breeze to digitize The Breeze’s weekly newspapers starting with the oldest editions dating back to 1907.
Johnstown’s story, locked up in microfilm reels in the Colorado State Library’s vaults, is patiently awaiting rediscovery in what is the largest collection of Colorado newspapers. The public is invited to participate in this worthy endeavor to help to bring Johnstown’s history back to the forefront for everyone’s benefit.
The Historical Society’s goal for this project is to help connect our community with its history, starting with an exhibit at the Glenn A. Jones M.D. Memorial Library during September to bring awareness to this 121-year-old Johnstown institution through selected stories and artifacts highlighting the town’s history in an interactive display.
Founded in 1904 by J. Gordon Smith, The Johnstown Breeze has always been an independently owned newspaper operated by many journalists over its long history who each contributed to its survival in this century following the advent of the World Wide Web in 1989. It was then that the Internet slowly began to replace the family dog’s job of fetching the rolled up and rubber-banded paper from the yard while Dad stood at the front door waiting for it in his robe and slippers. Now, with just a few clicks, it’s at his fingertips – anywhere at any time.
But that’s not so for Johnstown’s earliest issues of The Johnstown Breeze.
The Colorado State Library recognized this need, and the CHNC was established through a joint effort between the library, History Colorado, and the Collaborative Digitization Program (CDP) to overcome this deficit in accessibility by the public who would otherwise have to be physically present in front of the library’s microfilm readers to find this information. CHNC offers readers online access to more than 6.1 million digitized pages, representing nearly 900 individual Colorado newspaper titles, and they continue to add new titles on a regular basis – made possible with donor funding.
Last winter, The Breeze was selected along with other titles waiting in line to start their digitization thanks to generous cultural institutions and donors – libraries, historical societies, and several others who understand the importance and significance of this statewide preservation initiative. The benefit to the public is invaluable.
Unfortunately, the original Breeze editions from 1904 to 1907 were never saved or were lost, destroyed, or thrown out during a move. But the first two microfilm reels covering December 5, 1907 through October 13, 1910 are now available online. Several years ago, the state library scanned The Breeze’s newspapers up to 2007; contained in 41 reels.
The cost to digitize newspapers from microfilm in order to convert them into searchable files is less than one dollar per page, but considering the sheer number of pages over The Breeze’s more than a century of news, it will cost a considerable amount to eventually get them all online.
Michael Peever, Program Coordinator with the Colorado State Library, sums it up by pointing out that “Historic newspapers represent a boon to genealogists, historians, writers, teachers, students, hobbyist researchers, or anyone looking for that specific something – an event, a place, a person, a business, a movement, information on a particular group, a historical nugget…or, putting it bluntly, they are a goldmine for anyone interested in uncovering the truth.”
Peever’s co-worker and CHNC Digital Collections Senior Consultant Leigh Jeremias agrees that online access to history is an important tool for understanding our past, present, and future.
“The cost to digitize historic newspapers and make them searchable is not insignificant and often comes at a cost to other programs that institutions may offer,” Jeremias said. “Cultural heritage organizations that support free newspaper sites do not profit and are truly committed to free and open access to information for all. We, at the Colorado State Library, are honored to work with such dedicated institutions.”
Ongoing support for maintaining and providing access to the CHNC is paid for with federal and state funds administered by the Colorado State Library. CHNC’s long-term goal is to provide access to all newspapers published in Colorado between 1859 and 1928, the time period for which publications are in the public domain and without copyright restrictions.
With publisher permission CHNC can digitize content after that time period through a local funding model with contributions made by libraries, town governments, and other community organizations and personal donations.
Matt Lubich and his wife Lesli Bangert, co-owners of The Johnstown Breeze for the past 28 years, granted that permission and they’ve committed the first $1,000 to kick off the JHS’s Johnstown Breeze Digitization Project. The JHS is seeking sponsors and donations from the community to help fund this important project to keep the digitization process moving forward.
For longtime Johnstown residents who feel the loss of its small-town appeal as the town continues to grow, this is perhaps a way to lessen the pain of inevitable change as our town grows into a city. Being a part of this digitization project, either through donations or by helping with online corrections of text that can occur in the digital processing caused by folds and poor quality print is a way to nurture that that small-town feeling and help it to continue to thrive.
By tapping into that original essence of early Johnstown as the papers continue to be added to the collection, one will learn more about the people and the events through The Breeze’s vast collection of news stories and features that have shaped Johnstown into what it is today.
Take this opportunity to visit the Johnstown library and learn about your town’s oldest surviving business – The Johnstown Breeze. The library is open on Mondays and Fridays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturdays 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
For more of Johnstown’s history, come and walk through the Historic Parish House and Museum to learn about Johnstown’s founding family and others who were part of those early formative years of Johnstown’s existence. In addition to the CHNC, the museum’s artifacts are there for everyone to learn more about Johnstown’s unique heritage – and both are free. The Parish House, located at 701 Charlotte St., is open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and by appointment. Just like CHNC, the museum offers a peek into the windows of Johnstown’s past.
For more information on how to donate to this effort, email: JHSCOmuseum@gmail.com or call (970)587-0278.
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