Local resident Henry Stokes first proposed the paper for Petre, as the town was then called, but initial publication was held back by lack of equipment.

The motto of the paper, printed at the top of the editorial column, was "Verite Sans Peur," French for "Truth without Fear."

[1] In the 1880s Carson's sister Margaret Bullock worked as a reporter and assistant editor for the paper, and, along with Laura Jane Suisted, was one of the first female parliamentary correspondents in New Zealand.

[2] The woman editor for a time in the 1920s using her birth name Iris Wilkinson, later published poetry and novels as Robin Hyde, and is now "acknowledged as a major figure in New Zealand twentieth-century culture".

The paper was acquired by the new company NZME in September 2014, after the merger of APN News and Media and The Radio Network.