The Free Press is an American, English language daily newspaper published in Mankato, Minnesota.

[2] The last local owner of the paper was Jared How, who sold The Free Press Co. to Ottaway Newspapers Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company.

In 2002, Ottaway sold The Free Press and other papers to Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. (later renamed CNHI).

That year, due to rising costs, the paper stopped printing its Monday issue of the newspaper, though an electronic edition would continue to be published on their website.

The Free Press news staff covers six counties – Blue Earth, Nicollet, Le Sueur, Brown, Waseca and Watonwan.