Minden Press-Herald

The Minden Press-Herald is a Monday-Friday daily newspaper published in Minden, the parish seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, by Specht Newspapers, Inc. It serves the Minden and Webster Parish circulation area with mostly local news.

The first newspaper by this name in Minden was founded in 1895. The newspaper has evolved through many manifestations. In 1989, the Louisiana Press Association presented The Press-Herald with the annual "Freedom of Information Award" for its work the previous year in maintaining public access to city meetings and records.

The earliest use of the name Minden Herald dates to 1895, after publisher/printer/editor William Jasper Blackburn, an Arkansas native, settled in Minden, then a part of Claiborne Parish, and established the newspaper. He was a Democrat, a supporter of the Union, and opposed slavery. He was mayor of Minden for a single one-year term from May 1855 to May 1856. Blackburn published his Minden Herald for about six years. It was not the first newspaper in Minden. That distinction was held by the former Minden Iris, which was established in 1848 at the same time as the founding of neighboring Bienville Parish.

The Minden political climate shifted to favor the Know Nothing Party, which repudiated "non-native" ideas, and Blackburn moved to Homer, where he founded the Homer Iliad newspaper. During the American Civil War, Blackburn published in opposition to the Confederate States of America. Tried in Confederate District Court in Shreveport, Blackburn escaped conviction by a single vote on charges of having produced counterfeit Confederate currency. Had the conviction verdict been unanimous, he would have been hanged.

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