[1] Originally based in Dixon, Illinois; it has acquired a swath of properties in the Chicago suburbs and moved its headquarters there.
Founded in 1851, Shaw Media is the third oldest, continuously owned and operated family newspaper company in the United States.
At age 14, he worked delivering mail on horseback from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Galena, Illinois.
At age 16, Shaw worked at a printing plant in Rock Island where he learned the printer's trade.
[3] It was founded Charles R. Fisk, a retired Presbyterian minister who brought a Washington hand press and other printing equipment with him as his family traveled by carriage to come settle in Dixon.
Hopper dropped out before the end of the year and Shaw joined the firm two weeks before Bull sold out to J. V. Eustace, who became editor and proprietor.
[3] Shaw briefly traveled west to make his riches in the Pike's Peak gold rush.
[4] In 1856, Shaw was one of a dozen editors who met in Decatur to help found the Republication Party in Illinois.
[9] In her lifetime the business grew to encompass six daily and one weekly newspaper in Illinois and Iowa, along with the Dixon Publishing company, which was a large commercial printing firm.
"[6] The Illinois Press Association in 1994 created the Mabel S. Shaw trophy awarded annual in her honor.
Due to the Great Recession in the United States, the company consolidated operations and outsourced printing to a third-party.
[25] In 2005, the company acquired Lakeland Media, publisher of 12 weekly newspapers in Lake County, and reorganized the papers under its subsidy NorthWest News Group.
[26] The company purchased the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune in 2006,[27] El Conquistador in 2006[28] the Daily Chronicle from Lee Enterprises in 2007,[29] and Suburban Life Publications, a group of 22 weekly newspapers in Chicago's western suburbs, from GateHouse Media in 2012.