The Concordia Blade-Empire is a local newspaper for Concordia, Kansas

Concordia, Kansas

Concordia is a city in and the county seat of Cloud County, Kansas, United States. Located on the Republican River in the Smoky Hills region of the Great Plains, Concordia was founded in 1871 and is an economic and cultural center in north-central Kansas...

. It is the official newspaper for Cloud County, Kansas

Cloud County, Kansas

Cloud County is a county located in North Central Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the county population was 9,533. Its county seat and most populous city is Concordia.-19th century:...

. The paper publishes five days a week, Monday through Friday.

History

The Concordia Blade-Empire has a rich history of newspaper publication in the county. The paper today has its roots in two separate newspapers. (Several sources, including Janet Pease Emerey's book on the history of Concordia claim a third newspaper, The Republican, merged and/or was purchased by The Republican Valley Empire).

The Republican Valley Empire

The Concordia Blade-Empire was first published in Clyde

Clyde, Kansas

Clyde is a city in Cloud County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 716. Clyde is named for Clyde, Ohio and was originally known as Hamilton.-Geography:Clyde is located at...

 as the The Republican Valley Empire and was the first newspaper published in the county. The first edition was published on May 31, 1870.

During its first year of publication, newspaper owner/publisher Henry Buckingham

Henry Buckingham (American publisher)

Henry Buckingham was a newspaper publisher and community promoter in Cloud County, Kansas, USA. He is widely regarded as being the first to publish a newspaper in the county and claims that very fact in an article written by him and published in 1894...

 decided to move the newspaper operations to Concordia and printed its first edition in Concordia on December 24, 1870.

The Blade

James Manney Hagaman

James Manney Hagaman

James Manney Hagaman 1830 - January 18, 1904 was a lawyer, land agent, newspaper editor, and the founder of Concordia, Kansas. He and his wife settled in what is now Cloud County in 1860...

started a newspaper in 1879 and named the publication The Blade. Hagaman's paper released its first edition on April 23, 1879.

The two papers merge

On May 29, 1920 the Empire and the Blade merged. Two papers were now printed by one publisher: a weekly edition named the Empire and the Daily Blade. This continued until May 9, 1919 when an agreement was struck with a competitive newspaper that printed the Daily Kansan and the weekly Kansan. The Publishers of the Kansan would only publish weekly while the Blade would publish daily. On June 2 of that same year, the paper was re-named The Concordia Blade-Empire.