After changing owners and editors several times, the newspaper entered a 40-year period of stability beginning in 1929, when it became owned and edited by Charles Dwelley.

During this period, as Dwelley's editorials were picked up by other publications and quoted nationwide, the Herald's recognition and subscription base expanded beyond Concrete into the Skagit Valley.

However, after Robert's premature death in 1985 and June's retirement in late 1989, the Herald was purchased by a local businessman unconnected to the publishing business, leading to the newspaper's demise in 1991.

[6] The industrialization of Skagit County fell below Wilcox's expectations, and in 1904 he sold the newspaper to an immigrant from Norway, Hans J. Bratlie, who also became its editor.

Planning his retirement, Bratlie invited Ralph J. Benjamin to invest into and edit The Concrete Herald, with an option to purchase controlling stakes in the paper.

On March 9, 1915,[note 3] however, the newspaper's three-story wooden building and most of its equipment were destroyed by a fire,[19] and Benjamin had to abandon the paper, losing his investment.

[21] Bratlie's loss amounted from $7,000 to $9,000 (from $184,000 to $237,000 in 2021 dollars[note 4]), according to different accounts, but he salvaged some supplies and one Linotype machine that survived the fire, and continued publishing.

[18] In turn, Benjamin authored a series of critical editorials attacking both cement plants of Concrete for dust pollution, which led to a loss of advertising revenue for his paper.

[29][30] The strain of World War I, as well as local competition, eventually led to the indefinite suspension of the Skagit Valley News, making the Herald the only newspaper in Concrete by August 1918.

[31] Bratlie continued searching for his replacement, and by May 1917 he had engaged a well-known Everett printer,[32] Jim G. Webster, to work on The Concrete Herald.

[54][55] A month before Black Tuesday's collapse of the stock exchange, Evans sent his assistant, Charles Dwelley, to Concrete to edit the newly acquired newspaper.

[5][56] The youngest editor in Washington State at the time,[3]21-year-old Dwelley worked and lived with his pregnant wife in a wooden newspaper building[57] and operated two 19th century Linotype machines for 9-point and 12-point fonts, so all headings needed to be set by hand.

[5] In later years, Dwelley stated that the reason Evans has chosen him for the job was that he was the only person in the Sedro-Woolley office who could operate both machines.

"[61] The Herald's subscription base rose to include all of upper Skagit Valley, from Lyman in the west to Newhalem in the northeast.

[59] Dwelley's editorials were cited on the radio throughout the country, reprinted in nationwide publications such as Reader's Digest and The New York Times,[5] and referred to among professional journalists as "Dwellisms.

[63] By this time, the Herald's operation, one of the smallest of its kind,[64] needed three people, and Miriam McGuire replaced Art as an assistant.

[70][71] Dwelley claimed that in 1929 and 1930, he withstood pressure from executives of Superior Portland Cement, who offered him "help" with editing the paper[52] and insisted that his editorials should be cleared with the company's office prior to publication.

[72][5] Open confrontation concerning the dust pollution between Superior Portland Cement and the editor of Herald's competitor in Concrete The Skagit Valley News, was a contributing factor in the demise of that newspaper in 1916.

[74] In 1956, The Concrete Herald was sued for libel by Jacob Koops, a police judge of the city of Lyman, Washington, in connection to Dwelley's editorial of July 17, 1955.

[59] Until 1991, the Herald's subscription base covered a smaller area and was limited to the upper Skagit Valley, with dedicated sections on Birdsview, Marblemount, Newhalem, Rockport, and Van Horn.

[1] The newspaper maintains dedicated sections covering local news from Darrington, Clear Lake, Concrete, Hamilton, Lyman, Marblemount, Newhalem, Rockport, and Sedro-Woolley.