St. Helens Chronicle

The paper began in 1881 as the Oregon Mist, which eventually became the St. Helens Mist combined on April 7, 1933, with a relative startup, the St. Helens Sentinel, which began in 1926. For more than three decades, The Sentinel-Mist was published every Friday with a yearly subscription rate of $2. At one time, it claimed to have the largest weekly circulation in Oregon. Paul S. Paulson started the

St. Helens Chronicle – a free one-page sheet paper – in 1936 and distributed it free of charge every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. By the 1950s, The Chronicle began charging an annual subscription rate of $2.50. On July 1, 1968, The Chronicle purchased The Sentinel-Mist and dubbed itself The Sentinel-Mist Chronicle. At this time it was Columbia County’s only newspaper. The name eventually changed to The Chronicle and Sentinel-Mist, and consolidated to The Chronicle on March 25, 2009. The Chronicle is Columbia County’s largest classified and real estate section.