By Tracy Overstreet
tracy.overstreet@theindependent.com

A number of weekly newspapers started and ended in Grand Island's early days, said Edith Robbins, a German emigrant, historian and author.

Robbins addressed a group of 50 in the Hall County Historical Society's "Voices of the Past" presentation Sunday afternoon at Plum Street Station.

Despite current belief that Grand Island was predominately German, Robbins said census figures from the 1860s through 1880s show the city was never more then 27 percent German. Surrounding townships and the farming territory had a higher proportion of Germans.

Several weekly German papers in Grand Island made efforts early on to help draw more Germans to Central Nebraska and to "support the town and its development."

In fact, it wasn't uncommon to see two newspapers in even the smallest communities, Robbins said.

Grand Island's papers helped integrate German emigrants, providing them with understanding of the new country and updates from the homeland. Assimilation, which Robbins said occurs when ties to the home country are cut, comes several generations later.

Still, the integration was important to Grand Island's future as it didn't "isolate" emigrant populations as highly developed foreign presses in larger American cities tended to do.

Grand Island's earliest papers were written in English and were highly competitive, Robbins said.

She quoted from an 1878 column in the English-based Platte Valley Independent asking readers how long they could tolerate the "filth" and "poison" from its competitor, The Grand Island Times.

"Running a paper is a tough business," she laughed.

But the papers saw great things for Grand Island great growth, capitalist economies and even hope of someday becoming the capital of the state.

Both early papers eventually added a German weekly. The Times developed the Nebraska Tribune and the Platte Valley Independent added the Nebraska-Staatszeitung.

Although the German versions didn't last long, they may have helped spur two other unique papers in Grand Island history.

One was the Anti-Monopolist, an 1883 German and English publication by Fred Hedde, who challenged the freight rates of the railroad monopoly.

A year later, Hedde took over The Platte Valley Independent, which years later became The Daily Independent.

Grand Island also was home to a German literary magazine the Weltblatt. Publisher G.M. Hein wanted to preserve the Low German language known as Plattdeutsch, so the magazine was printed in such. Hein took no advertisements and was out of business in about a year, despite a peak circulation of 1,100.

Robbins said the German press did much to challenge political and social discussions because often they were "opposites."

Hedde's English paper, The Platte Valley Independent, was against Prohibition and suffrage.

In the 1880s Hedde said "he believed women belonged to the KKK it's not what you think," Robbins said. "It's kirche, kche, kinder. Church, kitchen and children."

Der Herold published by Henry Garn, Charles Boehle and later G.M. Hein challenged Hedde and promoted German American values, she said.

To get around stiff licensing fees to sell beer, the Liederkranz ceased being a "public place" and handed out keys as a private club thus avoiding the $500 liquor license.

But even as German emigrants continued to come to Central Nebraska, tensions grew. Some people took offense when German holidays were celebrated. Some Germans began to feel harassed, Robbins said.

Issues like prohibition, teaching of the German language, regulating freight rates which impacted German farmers, personal rights, political groups and protecting the German language became stressors.

In 1890, a Grand Island city councilman was quoted as asking, "Of what use is the German language? German should not be spoken anymore. The Germans have no business to be German."

The councilman said America is the best country and anyone who lives here should speak English.

Robbins reiterated the year was 1890 not 1980 or more recently, in which similar comments have been made about Grand Island's newest immigrants.

By World War I, German establishments such as the Liederkranz were subject to graffiti and threats about becoming more Americanized. The Liederkranz was forced to keep its minutes in English. German-language textbooks were stolen and burned at the high school.

The German newspaper of the day the Anzeiger und Herold was targeted. Its advertisers would not be patronized.

The Anzeiger und Herold finally gave up and identified its "fatal blow" in its final edition on June 27, 1918.

Still, the German newspapers helped grow Grand Island, expanded the thinking and dialogues of the day, and were a colorful part of the city's past, Robbins said.