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Appleton Post-Crescent Building

Dec. 16, 2019

Appleton, Wisconsin — The Wisconsin Historical Society has announced the listing of the Appleton Post-Crescent Building in Appleton, Outagamie County, in the National Register of Historic Places.  National Register designation provides access to certain benefits, including qualification for grants and for rehabilitation income tax credits, while it does not restrict private property owners in the use of their property.

The Appleton Post-Crescent Building was constructed as the headquarters, having both offices and printing presses, for the Appleton Post-Crescent newspaper in 1932. The non-partisan Appleton Post-Crescent newspaper was formed in 1920 from the merger of two partisan newspapers, the Appleton Crescent and the Appleton Post. The Appleton Post-Crescent has served as Appleton’s primary printed news source and only daily newspaper since 1920. The first Sunday edition of the Appleton Post-Crescent was published on Sept.24, 1961, marking the first time that a newspaper was available in Appleton and the surrounding area seven days per week. In 1964, the newspaper removed “Appleton” from its masthead and became simply the Post-Crescent, reflecting its expanded area of coverage and circulation.

The Appleton Post-Crescent expanded the original 1932 building in 1951, 1972, and 1991 to update its facilities as the newspaper’s circulation area grew and new technologies were adopted. The newspaper continually integrated new printing press and composing technologies to create a more efficient daily printing operation and offer a newspaper with sharper and higher-resolution photographic images and text. The period during which this building is significant begins in 1932 with the construction of the Art Deco-style original portion of the headquarters and ends in 1972, when the newspaper’s historic era of letterpress printing ended and a new phase of modernized print journalism was established. 

The register is the official national list of historic properties in America deemed worthy of preservation and is maintained by the National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Wisconsin Historical Society administers the program within Wisconsin. It includes sites, buildings, structures, objects and districts that are significant in national, state or local history, architecture, archaeology, engineering or culture.

To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit wisconsinhistory.org.

 About the Wisconsin Historical Society
The Wisconsin Historical Society, founded in 1846, ranks as one of the largest, most active and most diversified state historical societies in the nation. As both a state agency and a private membership organization, its mission is to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories. The Wisconsin Historical Society serves millions of people every year through a wide range of sites, programs and services. For more information, visit wisconsinhistory.org.