About Us

Celebrating 150 years in 2016, the Eldora Newspapers have never missed a publication and remain one of the last small town Iowa papers to continue publishing twice weekly.

We began as the Hardin County Ledger, first printed on January 6 of 1866, which became a twice-a-week publication in July of 1948. Along the way, The Eldora papers would boast a couple of Iowa’s more dedicated publishers, notably the late George Stauffacker who owned the papers for 37 years and Al Schafer who succeeded him and owned it 34 more.

The newspaper covers Hardin County, rural and city, and has traditionally reached into the Wellsburg area, too. The focus is on farming, small town business, small town industry, and small town life.

There is a strong commitment to coverage geared to AGWSR, BCLUW the South Hardin School districts readers – especially sports enthusiasts.

And being a paper in a community where a number of readers have grown up and moved on, the Eldora Newspaper can frequently be found monitoring their successes, and not surprisingly, showing up in mail boxes around the state and the nation.

Today the Eldora paper is printed under the Herald Ledger banner on Tuesday and the Hardin County Index on Friday. A single subscription gets you both.

In November of 2014, the Eldora papers turned a new page, joining the family of roughly 30 different publications printed by Mid-America Publishing Corporation based in Hampton.

The acquisition by Mid-America sealed neighbor -hood links between the Eldora and the nearby Grundy Center newspapers – both now owned by Mid-America.

Mid-America Publishing Corporation started in 1962. Its founders were the creators of the much loved Iowan Magazine, and today Mid America publishes 22 weekly newspapers, 7 shopper publications and three specialty publications. It has operations in 16 Iowa counties.

The new Mid-America umbrella also expands Eldora’s offerings to customers seeking commercial printing and design services.

In October 2019 Eldora newspapers went to printing only one paper weekly under the name Eldora Herald-Ledger