Montgomery County Newspapers
Digitized Newspapers
Montgomery County Sentinel
The most frequently used newspaper in our collection is the Montgomery County Sentinel, a local paper that began publication in 1855. All extant issues have been digitized through 1969.
1855-1963
This portion of the Sentinel has been digitized through the Maryland Digital Newspapers Project and issues in this date range are now searchable at the Library of Congress via their Chronicling America site.
For a tutorial on how to most easily find and search the Sentinel on Chronicling America, see this document.
1964-1969
This portion has been digitized through the New Life for Old News project and issues in this date range are searchable on our reading room computers.
Early Rockville Newspapers, 1822-1838
This collection contains a selection of small newspapers published in Rockville and dating back to the early 19th century, including the Rockville True American, the Maryland Journal and True American, the Maryland Journal, and The Maryland Free Press. These papers were all published by Rockville men, in various locations around Courthouse Square.
The following newspapers have also been digitized and are available to access in the reading room of the Jane C. Sween Research Library and Special Collections. Issues of the Gazette more recent than 1989 are not available for research at this time.
The Gazette, 1960-1965; 1977-1989 *NEWLY available: 1987-1989*
(Papers from 1966-1976 are not extant)
The Damascus Courier/County Courier, 1964-1972 *NEW*
(Serving the Damascus, Clarksburg, Rockville and Gaithersburg areas)
The County Courier, 1973-1981
(Purchased by the Gazette in 1981)
The Olney Courier-Gazette, 1981-1986
(Merger following purchase, covering Olney area news)
The Damascus Courier-Gazette/Damascus Gazette, 1981-1995 *NEW*
(Merger following purchase, covering Damascus area news)
The Bethesda-Chevy Chase Tribune, 1937-1977 *NEW*
(Issues from 1944 not included)
The Silver Spring Standard, 1939-1945
The Silver Spring Standard, a weekly newspaper, was first published October 26, 1939. It provides an excellent microcosm of Montgomery County life throughout the World War II years.
Non-Digital Newspaper Access
- Microfilm holdings
1970-2020
This portion of the Sentinel can only be accessed on microfilm at the Rockville Memorial Library. Montgomery History also retains microfilm holdings of every extant issue from 1855-1969. - Abstracts
To aid with research, we also provide published books of indexed abstracts from the Sentinel, on genealogy (Malloy, 1855-1934) and general interest (Bowman, 1855-1916), as well as clippings of published obituaries.
This collection also contains 50 more news-related publications reporting on the Montgomery County area from the early 19th century through the 21st century, including rare issues of Rockville and Maryland papers published from 1800-1850, numerous Montgomery County weeklies and bi-weeklies published between 1878 and 1995, and newspapers and periodicals from Rockville, Kensington, Damascus, Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Silver Spring, Wheaton, Gaithersburg, Potomac, and many more– offering broad coverage of area events and people. The link above provides the catalog listings for all newspapers and periodicals in our collection, which are available to view in our reading room. See this document, sorted by decade to indicate which newspapers cover what time periods.
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