PARK RIDGE—The first newspaper in the Pascack Valley got its start 135 years ago. Brothers John C. Storms and James B.H. Storms launched the Park Ridge Local from their family’s Park Ridge farm in January 1889. What began as a four-page weekly newspaper produced on a hand-cranked printing press would become so successful that it was printed for the next century.
For over 100 years, several generations of the Storms family had lived in a beautiful 1825 homestead on Spring Valley Road at Glen Road, aptly named Glen Haven. The family’s lineage could be traced back to the original landowner, and one of the first settlers in Park Ridge, Frederick Wortendyke.
When 19-year-old John and 28-year-old James Storms started their newspaper from a refurbished outbuilding at Glen Haven, the Pascack Valley was a much different place. The population of Park Ridge consisted of only 250 people, there were just two stores, and the news of the day reflected the people’s rural way of life.
Printing a newspaper like Pascack Press in 2024 is very much a digital endeavor. Until the moment the ink hits the sheet and the newspaper becomes a physical item, the whole process, from writing the stories to designing the pages, takes place on a computer screen. No such luxuries were afforded the Storms brothers, who, in addition to gathering the news and writing it, had to set the type by hand and churn out the pages on a hand-operated printing press. We can just imagine them traveling around Park Ridge on foot, or on horseback, with a pencil and paper to record from their neighbors the latest happenings.
As written by Joan Winkelhoff for the Pascack Historical Society in 1979: “Those early days represented a tremendous uphill struggle. With a total of 60 promised subscribers, only one had paid in advance, and that for six months only. Advertising was practically non-existent. An announcement for a blacksmith’s business for sale was the sole ad in the second issue.”
The brothers’ initial investment was $125—enough to buy newsprint for a year. The early newspaper was a four-page publication with five columns of local headlines on the cover, followed by three pages of syndicated national news. The cost to buy a copy was 3 cents per issue or $1.25 for a year’s subscription.
In 1894 the Park Ridge Local office moved from the farm outbuilding to more professional quarters on Park Avenue between Kinderkamack Road and Broadway. The ascent up Park Avenue from the train station toward Kinderkamack Road was colloquially known as Local Hill.
The brothers constructed the building with their own labor. Back then Kinderkamack Road was known as Magnolia Avenue, Broadway was called Railroad Avenue, and both were dirt roads traversed only by horses and wagons.
Three decades later a big new building took shape next door—the First National Bank of Park Ridge. The bank still stands, operating as Wells Fargo, but the former site of the printing office is long gone. Today the bank drive-up teller lanes are in its place.
The Storms brothers sold their newspaper in 1932. It continued to be printed for decades, although it operated under varied ownership and with different names, such as the Pascack Valley Local and the Local Review.