About Us

The Carroll Times Herald is published two times per week on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The Carroll Times Herald is part of the Iowa Information Media Group. The Sheldon-based Wagner family, well regarded for its award-winning flagship newspaper, THE N'WEST IOWA REVIEW, a growing portfolio of other publications, and its pioneering leadership in Iowa journalism and printing, took ownership Wednesday, November 30, 2022, of the Carroll Times Herald.

One year after Carroll was platted by the town lot department of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway company in August of 1867, the first local newspaper was published in Carroll.

On September 8, 1868, the first issue of the Western Herald appeared on the streets of Carroll. The paper was started by O.H. Manning, a business and professional leader who later became lieutenant governor of Iowa.

In March 1871, the name of the weekly paper was changed to the Carroll Herald.

A second paper, The Sentinel, appeared in 1880 and was made the organ of the Democratic party.

Another paper, the Carroll Times, was started in 1897 as the outgrowth of differences arising within the ranks of the party.

The Times won out over the Sentinel, and in 1911, the Sentinel assets were sold to both the Herald and the Times. The Times and the Herald continued to be separate publications for many years.

James Rhodes of Newton purchased the Herald on May 1, 1929 and named James W. Wilson, then advertising manager for the Newton Daily News, as the Herald’s business manager and acting head of the Carroll property.

A banner headline on Nov. 7, 1929 announced the “Carroll Herald Goes Daily,” and the newspaper adopted the slogan “The Only Daily Newspaper in an Inland Empire of Eight Counties.”

The daily Herald won the circulation battle with the weekly Times, and in 1936 the Herald Publishing Company purchased the Times and the mechanical plants of the two newspapers were combined. They continued as separate publications for some five years before they were combined into the Daily Times Herald.

Mr. Rhodes died in January 1944 and James W. Wilson purchased the Rhodes estate interest later that year. He owned and operated the paper until his death in 1977.

James B. Wilson joined the newspaper operation in 1967 and became publisher after the death of his father. Ann Wilson became general manager of the paper in 1984 and continues in that position today.

The newspaper has been in business in Carroll for 155 years.

In 2013, the Daily Times Herald was named Iowa Newspaper Association's Newspaper of the Year.