The Des Moines Register

''The Des Moines Register'' is the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa.

History

Early period

The first newspaper in Des Moines was the ''Iowa Star''. In July 1849, Barlow Granger began the paper in an abandoned log cabin by the junction of the Des Moines and Raccoon River.

In 1854, ''The Star'' became the ''Iowa Statesman'' which was also a Democratic paper. In 1857, ''The Statesman'' became the ''Iowa State Journal'', which published 3 times per week.

In 1870, ''The Iowa Statesman'' became the ''Iowa State Leader'' as a Democratic newspaper, which competed with pro- Republican ''Iowa Daily State Register'' for the next 32 years.

In 1902, George Roberts bought the ''Register'' and ''Leader'' and merged them into a morning newspaper. In 1903, Des Moines banker Gardner Cowles, Sr. purchased the ''Register and Leader''. The name finally became ''The Des Moines Register'' in 1915. (Cowles also acquired the ''Des Moines Tribune'' in 1908. The ''Tribune'', which merged with the rival ''Des Moines News'' in 1924 and the ''Des Moines Capital'' in 1927, served as the evening paper for the Des Moines area until it ended publication on September 25, 1982.)

Under the ownership of the Cowles family, the ''Register'' became Iowa's largest and most influential newspaper, eventually adopting the slogan "The Newspaper Iowa Depends Upon." Newspapers were distributed to all four corners of the state by train and later by truck as Iowa's highway system was improving.

Nationwide development

In 1906, the newspaper's first front-page editorial cartoon, illustrated by Jay Norwood Darling, was published; the tradition of front-page editorial cartoons continued until December 4, 2008 when 25-year veteran cartoonist Brian Duffy was let go in a round of staff cuts.

The ''Register'' employed reporters in cities and towns throughout Iowa, and it covered national and international news stories from an Iowa perspective, even setting up its own news bureau in Washington, D.C. in 1933. During the 1960s, circulation of the ''Register'' peaked at nearly 250,000 for the daily edition and 500,000 for the Sunday edition–more than the population of Des Moines at the time. In 1935, the Register & Tribune Company founded radio station KRNT-AM, named after the newspapers' nickname, "the R 'n T." In 1955, the company, renamed Cowles Communications some years earlier, founded Des Moines' third television station, KRNT-TV, which was renamed KCCI after the radio station was sold in 1974. Cowles eventually acquired other newspapers, radio stations and television stations, but almost all of them were sold to other companies by 1985.

In 1943, the ''Register'' became the first newspaper to sponsor a statewide opinion poll when it introduced the Iowa Poll, modeled after Iowan George Gallup's national Gallup poll. Sports coverage was increased under sports editor Garner "Sec" Taylor – for whom Sec Taylor Field at Principal Park is named – in the 1920s. For many years the ''Register'' printed its sports sections on peach-colored paper, but that tradition ended for the daily paper in 1981 and for the ''Sunday Register's'' "Big Peach" in 1999. Another ''Register'' tradition – the sponsorship of RAGBRAI – began in 1973 when writer John Karras challenged columnist Donald Kaul to do a border-to-border bicycle ride across Iowa. The liberal-leaning editorial page has brought Donald Kaul back for Sunday opinion columns. Other local columns have faded and given way to Gannett-distributed material.

Under Gannett ownership

In 1985, faced with declining circulation and revenues, the Cowles family sold off its various properties to different owners, with the ''Register'' going to Gannett

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