Two rural Nevada newspapers that have stood the test of time will be doing what the news industry has done since its inception: change. 

On Friday, Sherman Frederick, the founder of Battle Born Media — which now publishes three rural newspapers — told The Nevada Independent he has made a “verbal deal” to transfer ownership of The Ely Times and The Eureka Sentinel to Nevada Central Media. The Ely paper has been operating under its current name for more than 60 years, and the Eureka paper’s history reaches back more than 150 years.

Nevada Central Media, based in Alamo, runs the Lincoln County Record, provides media services for Lincoln County Regional Development Authority and worked with TravelNevada and the Lincoln County Authority of Tourism to update information kiosks in Alamo.

Owner Ben Rowley had been managing the Lincoln County Record since 2015 before buying the paper in 2020.

He told The Nevada Independent on Friday afternoon that he is excited to “serve the community well with good information” and is excited for the adventure. 

He said he plans to discontinue the newspapers’ print editions that publish weekly and move to a fully digital format. Though funding decisions are still being made, Rowley said the papers will likely be funded by advertising and paid digital subscriptions.

He said before the purchase, The Ely Times and The Eureka Sentinel didn’t have staffing besides an office manager that Nevada Central Media plans to lay off to invest in a team of writers in both communities.

Frederick and Rowley said they could not disclose the purchase price.

Battle Born Media will continue to publish three newspapers across the state: the Mesquite Local News, Mineral County Independent-News and the Sparks Tribune.

This deal comes after the newspapers were up for sale for nearly a year. Frederick put an announcement in The Ely Times in March 2023 that he and his business partner, former AP sports columnist Tim Dahlberg, would continue publishing the papers until they found a worthy buyer.

Frederick, who spent 38 years with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, including 18 as its publisher, came to Ely in 1979 for a two-week stint as editor of the paper, and eventually bought it with Dahlberg in 2010. 

“We’re older now, and believe we need to find a ‘fresh horse’ to carry on in Ely,” Frederick said in the March announcement. 

According to the Library of Congress, The Ely Times has been publishing since 1961, evolving from The Daily Times that was first published in 1951. Before that, the area was served by the White Pine Times, which was publishing when Ely was one of six mining camps in eastern Nevada. The newspaper’s website said it has a print readership of about 6,500 and an online audience of around 13,000 visitors monthly. 

The Eureka Sentinel has served the Eureka community since 1870, making the paper only six years younger than the state. The newspaper serves a print readership of about 900 in Eureka and surrounding areas in eastern Nevada.