When the first issue of the Flagler/Palm Coast News-Tribune rolled off the presses on Sept. 9, 1981, it was a paper with a long name and an even longer history.
The newspaper made its debut on Feb. 6, 1913 as the St. Johns Tribune. It would be another four years before Flagler County would be carved out of St. Johns and Volusia counties, but the promise of rapid growth meant plenty of news to be reported from the tiny town named for Alvah Bunnell.
Renamed The Flagler Tribune after the county was chartered in 1917, the weekly paper focused largely on local news. The earliest editions are filled with stories about the state of the county’s potato crop, the goings on in the county seat of Bunnell as well as Flagler Beach, along with the social comings and goings of county residents.
The paper changed hands a few times over the decades and in 1973 was sold to Florida Publishing Co., then owners of the Jacksonville Journal and Times-Union. That year also brought competition from a tabloid called the Palm Coast News, a publication of The Daytona Beach News-Journal that covered the entire county but with a focus on ITT Development Corp’s planned community of Palm Coast.
The Tribune and Palm Coast News existed side by side until September 1981 when the Davidson family, owners of the News-Journal, bought the Tribune and merged the two papers. One big change in store for the staff of the Tribune, which was published on Thursdays, was a switch to Wednesday and Saturday publication when it became The Flagler/Palm Coast News-Tribune.
The paper would occupy a few different office locations in Flagler County until 1993 when it moved into offices on McCormick Drive off State Road 100. In June 2008, the “Flagler bureau,” as it was known, was closed after The Daytona Beach News-Journal went into receivership, although the staff continued to report on Flagler County news from Volusia County.
The News-Journal and News-Tribune were purchased in 2009 by the Halifax Media Group and eventually were sold to Gatehouse Media, which in March 2012 opened a new office for the staff of the Flagler/Palm Coast News-Tribune at 4984 Palm Coast Parkway NW.
In September 2016, The News-Tribune returned to its tabloid roots and it is now published every Wednesday. It is delivered free to about 30,000 Flagler County homes each week.
You also can find Flagler County news posted online daily at news-journalonline.com/flagler or on our page, facebook.com/NewsTrib/
If you’re not getting home delivery, free copies of The News-Tribune are available at our Palm Coast office, 4984 Palm Coast Parkway NW, about a half-mile east of U.S. 1. Stop in and see us!
