In 1893 19-year-old Frederick Runyon founded Mill Valley’s first newspaper, the Mill Valley Times.
His father financed it. It came out every other Saturday during the summer.
The four-page, 6-1/2” by 9” newspaper cost five cents. Runyon’s printing press is on display in the History Room of the Mill Valley Library.
In 1894 the Marin County Herald began publication. In 1895 Runyon produced a four-page weekly tabloid, the Mill Valley Press, also called the Eastland Press or simply the Press. Both the Press and the Marin County Herald folded in 1896.
Mill Valley residents could find local news in the weekly Sausalito News that always had a Mill Valley section, as well as in newspapers published in San Rafael and San Francisco.
The Marin County Enterprise, founded in Mill Valley in1889, and the Mill Valley Record, founded in 1890, both weeklies, were rivals. In 1904 the owner of the Record bought the Enterprise and published the Record-Enterprise. In 1907 a rival Mill Valley Independent began publication.
In 1911 it changed its name to the Saturday Independent and soon ceased publication. In 1917 the Record-Enterprise shortened its name to the Mill Valley Record. It lasted until 1992.
(This vignette of Marin history was compiled by the Mill Valley Historical Society. The current newspaper in Mill Valley is the Mill Valley Herald, which is published on Wednesdays by Battle Born Media, a newspaper dedicated to preserving community newspapers. It publishes the Mill Valley Herald, the Ross Valley Reporter, the San Rafael News Pointer, the Sausalito Marin Scope, the Twin Cities Times and the Novato Advance.)
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