The Idyllwild Town Crier has been serving the San Jacinto Mountains (“the Hill”) continuously for 75 years — since its first issue was published on Nov. 1, 1946.

Ernie and Betty Maxwell founded the paper in the attic of their home, using a typewriter and a table-top mimeograph machine. The first issue, pictured here, was four pages long — two sheets of legal-sized paper mimeographed on both sides. Ernie’s artwork, including the “Town Crier” flag, embellished the first issue, and hand-drawn headlines became a staple of issues that followed. The Maxwells moved the Town Crier into a small, stone building on upper Pine Crest at Four Corners. Ernie sometimes wrote of the trials and the tribulations of being the publisher-editor of a community newspaper.

In 1957, the Maxwells sold the paper to Mark Clevenger and Gersh Rosen, who introduced a tabloid size, Varityper printed headlines, and offset printing and photos, but who operated the Town Crier for only 15 months before selling it back to the Maxwells.

The Maxwells owned the newspaper for another 13 years, returning to hand-drawn headlines, before selling the paper again, this time in 1972 to Luther and Marilyn Weare, who owned it for six years before selling it in 1978 to L.B. and Dorothy Hunsaker. At that time the paper was still being assembled by hand using wax on camera-ready, pasteboard galleys that were driven off the Hill to a printer.

After Dorothy died in 1989, L.B. sold the Town Crier to the Chronicle Publishing Company in San Francisco, a California corporation that owned it for five years. The Chronicle installed Bostonian Carole Brennan as publisher-editor, and she introduced computer-generated pages and a modular layout. She also moved the Town Crier into a building that is now the Idyllwild Health Center, nearly across from Forest Lumber. Three years later, Brennan returned to Boston and was replaced as publisher-editor by another Bostonian, Gary Hutner, who edited the paper for the Chronicle for two more years.

In 1994, the Chronicle sold the paper to Idyllwild Publications Inc., a California corporation that was wholly owned by Tindle Newspapers Ltd. of Farnham, England. Sir Ray Tindle, who owned the controlling interest in that company, also operated hundreds of community newspapers and radio stations, but this was his only newspaper outside of the United Kingdom.

Tindle purchased the old U.S. Forest Service building, which is now the location of Shiloh Christian Ministries, and Hutner stayed on as Town Crier publisher-editor at that location for another two years.

In 1996, Becky Clark, who had started with the paper as night typesetter under L.B. Hunsaker, became publisher-editor of the Town Crier and held that post for 13 years, retiring in 2009.

In 2009, Grace Reed, former advertising sales manager, became publisher, and JP Crumrine, former reporter, became editor and they continued for the next three-and-a-half years.

In 2013, Idyllwild House Publishing Co. Ltd., a California corporation wholly owned by Jack and Becky Clark, purchased the Town Crier. Becky resumed as publisher-editor and the Town Crier was moved to a location in Oakwood Village for a year, then moved to the old Ponderosa building on North Circle Drive, where Miss Sunshine’s packaging/shipping location is now.

In 2015, Jack Clark became co-publisher with her, also serving as general counsel from 2016 to early 2021. The paper switched to a broadsheet size, for economy and for better quality and more consistent printing and photos.

The entire newspaper industry had been hit hard by the stock market crashing in 2008 and real estate bottoming in 2009 — and the Town Crier was no exception. The Clarks introduced several changes to attract advertising, including a 25% cut in ad pricing, free color, bundling discounts, keeping open on weekends as a Visitors Center, and even more than doubling circulation by distributing “free to the Hill.”

In 2017, the Town Crier adopted a Membership model similar to that of National Public Radio, but without non-profit, tax-deductible benefits. Our Members have played a major role in keeping the Town Crier serving our Hill community.

When COVID hit in 2020, almost the entire TC staff began working from home, and the Town Crier downsized its office space to a location next to the pharmacy in Strawberry Creek Plaza, where it presently is located.

Today, the Town Crier is produced in Idyllwild, digitally assembled in Highland, printed in Phoenix, collected from Palm Desert and distributed to Members from Hawaii to Maine, with online Members in Canada. This week, the Idyllwild Town Crier celebrates its birthday and 75 years of continuous publication. And, as the headline blared after the 1996 Bee Fire and the 2013 Mountain Fire: “We’re still here!”