McCook Gazette Newsboy

The Gazette has been serving McCook and the Golden Plains of Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas since 1911. The newspaper was founded by Harry Strunk and a partner, Burris Stewart. Apparently depressed over additional debt and family problems, Mr. Stewart committed suicide on the day the second issue was printed.

Mr. Strunk, only 19 at the time of the Gazette's origin, persevered in the face of adversity and continued to serve as the newspaper's publisher until his death in 1960.

First known as the Red Willow County Gazette, the newspaper started as a weekly and evolved into a semi-weekly and tri-weekly publication before becoming a daily in 1924. Five years later, in 1929, the Gazette became the first newspaper in the world to be regularly delivered by airplane. Called "The Newsboy," the plane dropped newspapers in area towns for several months before being damaged in a windstorm and taken out of service.