About Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal

Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal

The Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal is the weekly newspaper of Ashcroft, British Columbia — the oldest weekly newspaper in the province, founded May 9, 1895 as The British Columbia Mining Journal. Published Thursdays and owned by Black Press, it has served the Interior communities of the Thompson country for 130 years: from the Cariboo gold-rush frontier to the modern highway towns. Publisher: Terry Daniels. Editor: Barbara Roden. Circulation: 515 (October 2022). (Wikipedia lists ashcroftcachecreekjournal.com as its website.)

Overview

The Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal is British Columbia's oldest weekly: founded in 1895, continuously published for 130 years — older than the province's modern highway system, publishing since the Cariboo gold-rush era. Its distinction is its unbroken run in a small Interior town: founded to serve the mines, renamed to serve the community, still publishing from the same 4th Street building it has occupied since 1898.

The paper's home is its monument: the Journal building at 125-4th Street, Ashcroft — a fixture for 121 years (as of 2020), one of the oldest structures in town and almost certainly one of the oldest buildings in the province that still houses its original business. The building has survived what the town threw at it: Ashcroft, as the Journal's own 125th-anniversary coverage noted, "has done a rather good job of trying to burn itself to the ground over the last century or so; wooden structures plus hot dry weather plus high winds will often produce that result." The Journal building hung on — the paper and its home, aging together.

History

The Journal's first publication, May 9, 1895, was put out by a man from Wisconsin, Dr. Frank Stewart Reynolds, and his partner A.H.S. Sroufe, who named their paper The British Columbia Mining Journal. It first hit the streets of the frontier community — the gateway to the Cariboo gold fields — as the mining paper. Ashcroft was the Cariboo Road town: the supply point for the gold country, the place where the miners outfitted and the freighters loaded. The Mining Journal was the frontier's paper: the mines, the claims, the supply trade — the gold-rush economy in weekly print. Four years later, with mining operations in the area slowing, Reynolds changed its name to the Ashcroft Journal and its coverage from the mines to the community: the mining paper become the town paper.

In June 1912, the Journal was acquired by R.D. Cummings, a local merchant who sold his general store to buy the paper — the shopkeeper become the newspaperman, betting his livelihood on the weekly. The Cummings family ran the Journal until 1978 — 66 years of family ownership, through the wars, the Depression, the post-war transformation. In September 1978 the Journal joined Black Press (then Cariboo Press): the family paper become the chain paper, the 83-year-old weekly entering its corporate era. Between 1980 and 1988 the Journal also published a Logan Lake community paper, delivered weekly to Logan Lake.

The paper celebrated its 125th anniversary in May 2020 with a special supplement — "Journal 125" — tracing its history: the 1895 founding; J.E. Knight, an early editor who was also a founder of the BC SPCA — the newspaperman as humane-society pioneer; the literary-leaning editor who followed, bringing letters to the frontier weekly. The 125th-anniversary series is the paper's autobiography: the editors, the owners, the building, the community — 125 years of the Journal, by the Journal. The 125th-anniversary coverage is the paper writing its own history: 125 years of serving the region, documented by the paper itself.

The building's history mirrors the paper's: begun in a shed on Railway Avenue in 1895, where the paper was produced by hand — pages "set" from trays of individual letters and symbols called "sorts," a laborious process. The paper moved to 4th Street in 1898. The building changed as printing changed: a new cement floor and foundations in 1956 — the press needing solid ground; the singlestorey front addition in the early 1970s, extending toward 4th Street. The 1910 photograph of the Journal office on 4th Street, looking west past the wooden sidewalks, shows the building young — one of the few historic Ashcroft streetscapes with the Journal as its focus. These days the Journal is laid out electronically — but the building still stands, still the Journal's. These days the Journal is laid out electronically — but the building still stands, still the Journal's.

Content

The Journal covers the Interior communities it serves: local government, school news, sports, community events, the mining and ranching news of the Thompson country. Its coverage area includes Lytton — the town devastated by wildfire in June 2021, when record heat and fire destroyed much of the community. The Journal, serving Lytton weekly, covered the catastrophe in its own backyard: the 1895 paper documenting the 21st century's disaster, the Interior's fires as the modern counterpart to the frontier's hardships. Its beats are the region's perennial stories: the highway towns, the ranches, the mines, the wildfires of the dry Interior summers. The paper's sections — news, sports, business, entertainment, community, lifestyles, opinion — serve the small towns' complete information needs.

Coverage and Audience

The Journal serves Lytton, Spences Bridge, Logan Lake, Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Clinton, Walhachin and Savona — the Thompson country's highway towns and ranching communities, every Thursday. The region is the dry Interior: the sagebrush hills, the Thompson River, the ranches — the cattle country that succeeded the mining country. Cache Creek, the twin town, sits at the highway junction; Clinton, the historic Cariboo Road village; Spences Bridge and Savona, the river towns; Logan Lake, the mining town; Walhachin, the storied settlement. The Journal is all of their paper. Its readers are the Interior's people: the ranchers, the miners, the highway-town families, the retirees. The paper's reach is the region the dailies overlook: the small towns between the cities, served weekly since 1895.

Ownership

The Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal is owned by Black Press. Its lineage: Dr. Frank Stewart Reynolds and A.H.S. Sroufe (1895–1912), the Wisconsin doctor and his partner who founded the mining paper; R.D. Cummings and family (1912–1978), the merchant who sold his store to buy the paper; Black Press (1978–present), the province's community-newspaper chain.

Digital Presence

The paper publishes online at ashcroftcachecreekjournal.com (Wikipedia lists ashcroftcachecreekjournal.com as its website) — the digital edition of B.C.'s oldest weekly: the Interior's news, updated for the digital age, carrying 130 years of the Thompson country online.

As of 2026, the Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal continues — more than 130 years after the May 1895 founding, still publishing Thursdays from the 4th Street building, still the Interior's paper, still the Journal. From Reynolds' hand-set Mining Journal to the Black Press digital present, from the Railway Avenue shed to ashcroftcachecreekjournal.com, it remains what it has always been: the Thompson country's own paper — the Interior's news, the Interior's voice, the Interior's record. The 1895 mining paper, the 1899 town paper, the Cummings family paper, the Black Press paper: 130 years serving Lytton, Spences Bridge, Logan Lake, Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Clinton, Walhachin and Savona, still publishing Thursdays from the 4th Street building, still and always the Interior's own paper, still and always the Interior's own paper — yesterday, today and tomorrow, still and always.

Note: website left empty in frontmatter per project rule for url-unverified rows; Wikipedia lists ashcroftcachecreekjournal.com as its website.