The little newspaper you’re reading had an incredible genesis to become, after 150 years, what I believe is the oldest successful business in Lexington County. Our friend Tom Ledbetter found this in

Our friend Tom Ledbetter found this in the University of South Carolina archives with details you may find interesting:

The weekly Lexington Dispatch-News brought the news to the people of Lexington County, in central South Carolina for over 150 years. In 1870, the year of its founding, Lexington County was still primarily rural, its economy relying on lumbering and small farms.

In the 19th century, railroads lines were expanded, enabling farmers to ship crops to wider markets, spurring the growth of new towns like Batesburg, Chapin and Irmo.

In the 20th century, the creation of Lake Murray and foreign investments greatly accelerated county economic growth.

THE NEWSPAPER began as the Lexington Dispatch Sept. 17, 1870. Founder Godfrey Michael Harman pledged “the Dispatch will uphold the principles handed down to us by our forefathers, and will ever battle for the rights and interests of the people.”

On Oct. 6, 1870, the Charleston Daily News described the Lexington Dispatch as a “neat and attractive weekly paper,” noting that “Mr. Godfrey M. Harman deserves credit for the enterprise and taste which mark the first issue of his paper.”

The Columbia Phoenix gushed that the Lexington Dispatch will “take a high place among the weekly journals of the state.”

In its fledgling years, Godfrey Harman acted as assistant city editor and publisher. Charles Steele Bradford, George D. Haltiwanger, William David Mathias Harman, and Henry William Rice served as editor.

ON APRIL 24, 1894, the Lexington Dispatch office was destroyed by “the most disastrous fire that Lexington has ever experienced except when Sherman’s army burned most of the buildings in the place.”

The newspaper went to press the very next day, using the printing press of the Columbia Daily Register. On March 17, 1917, the Lexington Dispatch was merged with another weekly, the Lexington News.

It was re-named the Lexington Dispatch-News with Godfrey Harman as editor, Samuel Jesse Leaphart as business manager.

ON AUGUST 6, 1919, Thornleigh Walker and Ira McMorris Sligh bought the Lexington Dispatch-News. They shortened the name to the Dispatch-News months later.

In later years, Godfrey Harman remained active, contributing reminiscences on life and customs in Lexington County under the pseudonym “Uncle Josh.”

In 1934, Mary and Wilburn Bruner acquired the Dispatch-News from Monnie Sligh, Ira Sligh’s widow. It remained in the Bruner family for nearly 50 years.

The Bruner family sold the paper to a USC professor, Mark Ethridge. A fatal illness forced him to sell in 1984 to the Bellune family and a silent partner.

The paper was in financial distress but the Bellune’s made it profitable and left it in the hands of their other partners in 1991.

IN 1992, at the urging of community leaders, MacLeod and Jerry Bellune came out of retirement and launched the Lexington County Chronicle. Over the next 11 years, Lexington County readers and advertisers had a choice between the 2 newspapers.

On March 28, 2001, the Bellunes bought their rival and merged it with their newspaper to become the Lexington County Chronicle & The Dispatch-News.

Do you have other details about this newspaper’s history? Please email me at JerryBellune@yahoo.com. Thank you.