The Gladstone Observer was launched in 1880 by William Mellefont. When Mellefont died in 1887 his widow's brother, Robert Kilfeder, bought an interest in the newspaper and managed it. In 1889 he appointed William Joseph Manning as manager, who bought out the Kilfeder-Mellefont partnership in the following year and ran the paper as proprietor-editor for 20 years. In 1910 Manning sold the paper to John Henry Kessel. In 1917 C.W.B. Macfarlan took over as editor, and from 1922 to his death in 1947 he was also proprietor. Macfarlan's second wife, Margaret, then ran the newspaper until 1968.
From 1968, the paper was published under a variety of titles including The Gladstone Observer and Port Curtis Advertiser, The Observer (26 June 1968 - 16 March 1974), The Gladstone Observer (19 March 1974 - 3 December 1993), and finally The Observer (from 4 December 1993).
