It was initially a Whig partisan newspaper and published only a weekly edition.
Alden owned it for the first decade in partnership with a number of different prominent Rock County Whigs until selling his remaining ownership to his last partner, Charles Holt, in 1855.
The paper passed through a number of other owners before being purchased by Howard Bliss in he 1880s.
[3] It was sold to Adams Publishing Group in 2019; prior to then, it had been owned by the Bliss family for 136 years.
[4] While it had previously published every day of the week, the newspaper suspended its Saturday and Sunday editions in June 2020 due to the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.