About the Chaska Herald

Ownership

SW News Media and its' 8 local newspapers including the Chaska Herald is owned by Big Fish Works. Big Fish Works is a second-generation, family-owned, Minnesota company that has 11 established community newspapers, a successful digital agency and commercial printing operations. Current family ownership of Big Fish Works runs back nearly 50 years.

History

Although the Chaska paper has always been the Herald, its original name of Valley Herald was first used in Shakopee in the late 1850s. When Charles Warner, an early Chaska developer, initiated the town’s third newspaper in 1862, he bought the press and other equipment of the Carver Democrat, moved it to Chaska and chose the Valley Herald name. The paper was purchased by Chaska’s DuToit family later in the 1860s and it remained with the family for 107 years. In 1969 the business was sold to William McGarry, of Appleton, Minn.; eventually McGarry and partners Stan Rolfsrud and Gary Welch purchased the Eden Prairie, Jordan and Prior Lake newspapers to expand what was then known as Southwest Suburban Publishing.

In 1980 that corporation became a division of Red Wing Publishing, which at the time owned the Shakopee newspaper, and the new operation changed its name to Southwest Newspapers. Today, the award-winning Chaska Herald is delivered by mail on Thursday’s. Red Wing Publishing is now known as Big Fish Works.

Awards

Minnesota Newspaper Association Better Newspaper Contest, General Excellence winner 2014, 2015, 2018