THANKS FOR 150 YEARS

SHERRY HAAIMA sherry.haaima@metroland.com

For 150 years, the Renfrew Mercury newspaper has been telling the stories of our town and the people who live here. From news articles on government, development, tragedies, crime and feature stories that break the heart or warm the heart, to the weekly listing of deaths and births, the history of our town can be discovered and is preserved on those pages.

The Renfrew Mercury was founded in1871by Albert Smallfield,anEnglishmanwithafamily background in journalism. In1919Smallfield'ssonW.E.sold the business to Rupert Davies, father of famous Canadian author Robertson Davies.

Inmorerecenttimes,thepaperwasownedbytheWilsonfamily, D.W. McCuaig and Fred Runge. Today the paper is owned by Metroland, a division of Torstar. One hundred and fifty years after its inception, The Mercury continues to serve

Renfrew and area, now as a free distribution paper delivered to more than 7,000 homes each week.

And while the paper has seen its share of transformation and change over the years as across the globe the newspaper industry has changed and suffered, a smaller but no less dedicated staff,wholiveandworkintown, continues to work hard to tell the stories and mark the milestonesinRenfrewandarea.And our reach has extended way beyond our borders with our website insideottawavalley.com. While reporters and editors once had the luxury of seven days to prepare and fine-tune their stories, we're now posting fresh content daily.

From a location downtown next to the post office, to a longtime home on Opeongo Road, to a pandemic-prompted but now permanent move to working from home, we — from carriers to management to everyone in between—remaincommittedto putting out the newspaper each week.

It may be our anniversary, but we would like to thank and congratulate all of you — advertisers for your business, story subjects and officials for your co-operation, and of course, our readers, without whom we would not be here — for your continued support.

A special thanks to Heritage Renfrew, whose diligent volunteers work to archive our publication and photos so that the Renfrew Mercury and all it contains will be preserved for years to come. Most of the photos and much of the information in our anniversary section were graciously provided by Heritage

Renfrew and we are most grateful.

"Community newspapers are so important in creating the historical documents," said Heritage Renfrew's Doug Fraser. "Particularly the Renfrew Mercury has been integral in preserving the heritage of the community."