Our archives are expanding, and we’ve added new papers from Bradenton, Florida! The Bradenton Herald has nearly 1.5 million searchable pages with issues dating back to 1922.

In 1887, Bradentown became the county seat of Manatee County. A young lawyer living in a nearby county saw a business opportunity and moved to Bradentown where he began publishing Manatee County’s first enduring paper, The Manatee River Journal. At first, only local news was printed because the town did not often receive news from the outside world.

The population of Braidentown (as it was spelled back then) numbered some 123 residents. The paper brought progress to the town, and soon the government added daily mail service delivered by boat from Tampa. In 1922, The Braidentown Herald merged with The Manatee River Journal and became The Evening Herald. We have archives from The Manatee River Journal and Bradentown Herald dating back to 1889. In 1926, the paper’s name was changed to The Bradenton Herald.

Bradenton was named after Dr. Joseph Braden, whose fortress-like house became a refuge for settlers during the Seminole Wars. In the 1880s, a yellow fever epidemic broke out in Florida, and the nearby towns of Manatee and Palmetto were put under quarantine and cordoned off. Braidentown residents were able to keep the town open, and a steamer from Mobile delivered groceries and supplies every 10 days until the crisis passed.

Baseball is a beloved pastime in America, and Florida’s beautiful weather attracted major league teams to the area for Spring Training. Bradentown adopted the slogan ‘The Friendly City’ and rolled out the red carpet for teams like the St. Louis Cardinals, who trained in the city in the early 1920s.

Like other coastal Florida cities, Bradenton has experienced the power of mother nature. In 1946, the city took a direct hit from a storm known as Hurricane Six. The hurricane caused more than $5 million in crop losses. The paper also covered Florida’s deadliest tornado outbreak in 1998. Some 260 were injured and 42 died.

Over the decades, The Bradenton Herald has chronicled the history of this Gulf Coast city. If you have ancestors that lived in Bradenton, search for them in birth announcements, wedding announcements, and obituaries. You may also find them mentioned in the society pages, if they attended a family reunion, or were sick or injured. A column called ‘Personals’ chronicled who was in town visiting and when residents left on vacation.

Start searching The Bradenton Herald at Newspapers.com™ today.

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26 thoughts on “New Papers from Manatee County, Florida!

  1. I am looking for the Boston herald = that’s it! to be EXACT THE FRONT PAGEs IN APRIL OF 1970!
    can you help me out?

    1. Hi Mark, We have 8 different Boston papers but we currently don’t have the Boston Herald in our archives.

  2. I would like to see newspapers from southern Colorado. When you get those I will be happy to subscribe.

  3. Wow! Only one blog article for the entire month June. No wonder Nobles Library pulled out of this site.

    This place is dead!

  4. You do not have info that addresses my needs in my genealogy research. My families were all rural, small town, farmers from centuries past and you have no newspapers from those areas.

  5. I would very much like any indigenous American people from the 1800 and 1900 of Spokane, thank you in advance

  6. I am interested in a story about a man that was shot to death and Sunbury Ohio in his vehicle this happened in the late 1900s to early 2000s for some reason has been totally washed under the road no record whatsoever I would like information regarding that if there are archives in the newspapers about that incident I would probably subscribe

  7. I would like to cancel my subscription to Newspapers.com.

    Please tell how to do that.

  8. Thanks for adding the Bradentown/Bradenton newspaper. I’ll bet the folks back home up north have no idea how many of their ancestors made the trek to Bradenton in the 1920’s and 1930’s. I sure didn’t and have found a treasure trove of stories to add to my genealogy. Please add some small town Michigan papers. I’m upgrading today.

  9. Jenny ,the Manistee, Michigan, historical society has a basement full of 19th century newspapers rotting away. Any chance that Ancestry can contact them and offer to digitize? They are chronologically arranged and full of material.

    1. Hi Jeff – Please have the historical society reach out to support@newspapers.com. They will connect them with our content team. We’ve worked with many different historical societies.

  10. I would love to see the newspapers from Dutchess and Columbia Counties in New York. Especially the earlier ones from 1800’s to early 1900’s.
    Also the newspapers from Scottdale, Pennsylvania. More small town papers please.
    I use newspapers.com all the time and it is wonderful finding my family in the various papers. Keep up the great work!!

  11. I would like to see Gloucester County, NJ papers. The Woodbury Times and the Gateway News from Westville, NJ, The Times became the Gloucester County Times and now is the South Jersey Times. The Gateway News closed down about 25 years ago.

  12. I would love to see newspapers from Framingham, MA. (Framingham News, South Middlesex News, Middlesex News, Metrowest News.). Currently they are only on microfilm at the Framingham and Boston Public Libraries.

  13. I am very happy! I finally decided to subscribe to Newspapers.com and was so happy to find so many articles of my relatives and others there. The best one was a marriage announcement of my mother and her 1st husband! I would dearly love to see newspapers from Wichita Falls, TX one being Times Record News and from Roanoke, Virginia one beling the Roanoke Times. Thank you so much for scanning so many good newspapers – it’s a lot of work for sure and a very needed thing to have. Judith Jo Linenfelser

  14. I would like to say how much I appreciate Newspapers.com. It has been a great help for my research, in all parts of the country. Baltimore, eastern and western Pennsylvania, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York are all here. A large amount is from Kansas and Missouri. I think this is a terrific service and I couldn’t work without it. Thanks!

  15. Is there any chance of obtaining The Memphis, Tennessee newspapers THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL(1894- ) and the PRESS-SCIMITAR(1880-1983)? Also, the ARKANSAS GAZETTE(1819-1991) and ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT(1878- )?

  16. I Love Newspapers.com and found many, many articles that followed my Dad’s fight, from 1954 to 1957, when ( falsely accused and nearly destroyed by a newspaper that decided to be judge and jury), he was totally exonerated by the Florida State Supreme Court. You have reopened great history books! Thank you!!

  17. I’ve served as the Passaic County (New Jersey) Historian for 46 years. Diligent researchers know about the joy and drudgery in ploughing through reels of old-fashioned microfilm. Newspapers.com, the marriage of technology with speedy information access, has come to our rescue. It represents a marvelous boon to scholarship.

  18. Many requests made for newspapers not yet available. They are a powerful tool and window into our ancestors everyday lives. I know I have especially enjoyed learning about them through published words either good or bad news. So…it’s not just about the obituaries, it’s about living back in the day. Thank you newspapers.com

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