About The Naracoorte Herald

The Naracoorte Herald

The Naracoorte Herald is a newspaper published in Naracoorte, South Australia — the historic paper of the Limestone Coast's northern districts, first published on 14 December 1875 as The Narracoorte Herald, and the town's continuous record through 150 years of farming, wine, caves and tourism. Founded as an offshoot of Mount Gambier's Border Watch, it survived a libel action that bankrupted its owners in 1889, a 1948 change of name from Narracoorte to Naracoorte, the long family stewardships of the Caldwells and the Peakes, and the upheavals of the modern provincial press. In 2023 it was renamed to the broader regional title Limestone Coast Today — a new name for a 148-year-old masthead — and it is now owned by Star News Group.

Overview

Naracoorte sits in the Limestone Coast region of South Australia, a service town for the surrounding sheep, cattle and wheat farming industries — and, in recent decades, a tourism centre. The town sits at the centre of three wine regions: Coonawarra and Wrattonbully to the south, Padthaway to the north. To the south lie the World Heritage-listed Naracoorte Caves National Park — 28 caves, four open to the public, whose fossil deposits record half a million years of biodiversity and climate history, including the extinction of Australia's megafauna and the arrival of humans — and the Ramsar-listed Bool and Hacks Lagoons. The town's wool heritage is kept at the Sheep's Back Museum, and its art at the Naracoorte Regional Art Gallery, the oldest regional gallery in South Australia. The Herald has been the town's paper since 1875, published under that name since 1948; before that it used the older spelling of the town, The Narracoorte Herald. It serves Naracoorte and the surrounding towns of Lucindale, Penola, Padthaway and Frances — the newspaper's historic patch, unchanged for generations.

History

Founded as a Border Watch offshoot, 1875

The Narracoorte Herald was founded in 1875 by Andrew F. Laurie (1843–1920) and John Watson (c.1842–1925) — the proprietor and editor of Mount Gambier's Border Watch, then in its fourteenth year — as an offshoot of their paper, and run by John B. Mather and Archibald Caldwell (1855–1942), who had learned the trade at the Border Watch. Caldwell left soon after, and the paper was purchased by Mather and George Ash, who ran the business until 1889.

In that year Mather and Ash were successfully sued by William Hutchison, J.P., for a libel accusing the wealthy squatter of "dummying" — the practice of using dummies to acquire land — and giving the opinion that Justices of the Peace should be free of such taint. Considerable sympathy was felt by the farming community for Ash and Mather, and they had a champion in the Legislative Council in A. M. Simpson; but after a Supreme Court trial under Justice Boucaut lasting ten days, Hutchison was vindicated, and Mather and Ash lost all they had. The paper was forced to close at the end of August 1889. Publishing resumed with the issue of 25 October, after Archibald Caldwell returned to purchase the business; he ran it with his brother Dugald Caldwell until his death, and Dugald then took over the business, assisted by his niece Jean Anderson.

In 1912 the nearby Tatiara and Lawloit News (1908–1912), which also printed in Naracoorte, was absorbed into the Herald — one of the small consolidations that built the country press.

The spelling and the Peakes

The town's newspaper retained the original spelling, "Narracoorte," until well after the name had officially changed — the Post Office, Railways and other government departments had standardised the town's spelling to "Naracoorte" before 1896, but Archibald Caldwell doggedly stuck to the alternative spelling for decades. It was not until new owners took over in 1948 that the banner was changed: in that year Dugald Caldwell sold the business to James L. Thomson, a long-serving employee, and the paper became The Naracoorte Herald. By this time a collaboration was in place between the Herald, Mount Gambier's Border Watch and Bordertown's Border Chronicle.

Harry and Margaret Peake bought the paper in 1958, and their son Richard Peake and his wife Judith Barton took over in 1979 — another long family stewardship in the South Australian country press, spanning more than half a century.

Fairfax, ACM, Star and the new name

The Naracoorte Herald was owned by Fairfax Regional Media from October 2010, with the Fairfax regional office located in the town on Smith Street — the paper's home since the 19th century. Since mid-2019 it has been owned by Australian Community Media, which purchased the Rural Press publications when Fairfax was bought by Nine — and in the December 2022 deal it passed to Star News Group. In 2023 it was renamed to the broader regional title Limestone Coast Today.

In May 2020, during the Herald's COVID-19 suspension, a new rival paper, the Naracoorte Community News, was launched by Michael Waite to fill the gap — a sign of how deeply the town felt the absence of its 145-year-old paper.

Content

The Herald covers the Limestone Coast's northern agenda: sheep, cattle and grain farming; the district's agricultural shows and field days; the Naracoorte Caves and the World Heritage tourism they bring — the fossil site is vital to the economy and culture of the district; the wine regions that surround the town; and the community life of Naracoorte and its satellite towns. Council affairs, courts, health, education and the district's sporting life — Australian rules football, netball, cricket — round out the offering. Media directories describe it as a weekly newspaper serving the region around Naracoorte, including Lucindale, Penola, Padthaway and Frances.

Coverage and Audience

The paper serves Naracoorte and the surrounding Limestone Coast districts: the town itself, the farming country around it, the wine villages, and the smaller centres of Lucindale, Penola, Padthaway and Frances. Its readership spans farming families, the town's professionals and tradies, the wine and tourism operators of the caves and cellar doors, and the retirees of the district. A Wikipedia-compiled circulation table listed the Naracoorte Herald with a circulation of 2,433 and 39 digital subscribers; current figures for the renamed title are not publicly confirmed.

Ownership

The paper — now titled Limestone Coast Today — is owned by Star News Group. Its ownership lineage runs from Laurie and Watson (1875) through Mather and Ash, the Caldwell family, James L. Thomson (1948), the Peake family (1958–2010), Fairfax Regional Media, Australian Community Media and Star News Group — a century and a half of the Limestone Coast's history in one masthead.

Digital Presence

The paper maintains a website and social media channels for Limestone Coast news, sport and reader engagement. The Herald's building at 93 Smith Street, Naracoorte — on the site of the first Herald building, the former National Bank building facing Ormerod Street, with a purpose-built 1907 building facing Smith Street, rebuilt in 1965 and again in 1986–88 — stands as a monument to the paper's 150 years in the town. From the Narracoorte Herald of 1875 to Limestone Coast Today, the masthead has proudly been the district's continuous record for a century and a half: through the libel trial that bankrupted its owners, the spelling change of 1948, the Peake family's long stewardship, and the digital transformation of the 2020s.