The Cowles family of Des Moines, Iowa, bought the Minneapolis Star for $1 million in June 1935. The purchase was announced on the front page of the Star, accompanied by a note from the new owners that painted a bright future for the publication despite a depressed business climate.

The new Star, according to the late George Hage, a journalism professor at the University of Minnesota, “redefined the meaning of news” with an emphasis on sports, photography and “sensational” writing and presentation. “Readers flocked to the Star,” Hage wrote. “Between 1935 and 1939, the Star’s circulation jumped from 75,770 to 150,056.”

The reassuring language used by the new owners in announcing the 1935 sale parallels that used by the principals of Avista Capital Partners, a private equity firm that today announced it is buying the Star Tribune for $530 million. Here’s what the new owners told readers 71 years ago:

In purchasing control of The Star we are joining forces with John Thompson and George Adams and their associates to try to help them realize their ambitions to make The Star one of America’s great liberal newspapers. All of The Star’s present executives and employes remain under the new ownership.

The Star will continue to be a paper for all the people – not just for one group or class.

The Star will continue to be politically and financially independent.

It will continue to present the news fairly, accurately, concisely and honestly, to confine its own opinions to the editorial page, to respect views with which it may not agree, to be a growing force in the development of Minneapolis as a splendid city in which to live and to work.

It will continue to balance enterprise with decency and to seek to be a source of information and entertainment in every home.

We have bought control of The Star for many reasons:

First, we like the spirit of The Star and the men and women who are making it.

Second, we like Minneapolis and think it has a great future.

Third, we know that The Star’s progress during the last ten years is one of the newspaper marvels of the country. We think The Star is going to go ahead at an even faster rate from now on, and will be increasingly able to perform genuine public service for the people of Minneapolis and the northwest. We think The Star likewise will have a great future from the business standpoint, and will have a large measure of success because it deserves it.

Fourth, we think better times are coming. Sooner, possibly, than most people imagine.

We plan many improvements in The Star. It will be even a better, more satisfying paper in the future, we hope, than it is now.

DAVIS MERWIN
JOHN COWLES
GARDNER COWLES, Jr.

The sale prompted President Roosevelt to send a congratulatory telegram — potentially worth hundreds of dollars on eBay more than 70 years later. The Star published the telegram on page one the next day, along with the text of other attaboys from around the country.

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