Canfield opens historic news printing site to public Saturday

CANFIELD

Newspaper enthusiasts can go back in time without the use of a time machine by stepping through the doorway of the 1865 Mahoning Dispatch Museum, 21 S. Broad Street.

Time travelers will have the opportunity to see four historic machines – a Linotype, a Heidelberg Windmill, a Platen Press and a Campbell Flat Bed – that helped print The Mahoning Dispatch, a weekly paper, for 91 years.

From 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday, the Canfield Historical Society is asking for $5 donations for the Fowler Ford Open House in exchange for a tour through the past, and an additional six-decade display of automobile advertisements in The Mahoning Dispatch from 1910 through the 1960s.

Canfield Historical Society President Suzanne McCabe said she’s excited to let people know the building and the machines behind the former Mahoning Dispatch are still here.

“I want people to see our treasure,” she said. “We are still here, on the green in Canfield, intact, and people have driven by this every day of their lives and not come in and seen just how incredible it is. It’s much like stepping back in time.”

Ralph Fowler was the last publisher of The Mahoning Dispatch before he donated the building to the historical society in 1991.

Read more about the paper, the building and the event in Friday's Vindicator on Vindy.com.