'The two page first issue of The Northern Star was brought out on May 13, 1876, on the tiny Albion hand press that today [2013] holds pride of place in the foyer of the Goonellabah Media Centre. The primitive printing press is a small monument to the advancement of The Northern Star.
'In 1955 building started on the media centre in Goonellabah, and in 1957 the move was made from the Molesworth St office.
'In 1981 The Northern Star commissioned a 7unit Gross Urbanite Web Offset press capable of printing 40,000 fifty six page copies - or 2.24 million pages an hour.
'In 2004 the press was upgraded to twelve units with six Enkel auto reel stands, increasing the capability to 3.2 million pages an hour. That's 53,333 pages a minute! Colour capacity also increased from 16 to 48 pages of processed colour in one pass.'
Source: The Northern Star website, http://www.northernstar.com.au/aboutus/
Sighted: 13/08/2013
During 1888 the newspaper regularly published selected anecdotal pars from overseas sources. Pars were sometimes published with a source attribution. The editor's actual source for the pars is not always clear. The attributed international sources for pars in The Northern Star and Richmond and Tweed Rivers Advocate include:
Harper's Bazaar
Toronto Telegraph
Hilton Fernbrook, part-Maori and orphaned heir of Colonel Fernbrook returns from five years abroad to his ancestral home and wealth. His fiancee Lady Blanche Trevor feels he has changed as do the old Maori servants who raised him but his rich hospitality convinces NZ society. He is, in reality, an expert mesmerist and an escaped convict who uses music and the power of his will to overcome the mind of his beautiful Maori ward Te Coro and use her as his visionary oracle. Other characters include the poor but latterly successful writer Alton Lyndhurst; Ralph Warne the banker's son who promoted Alton's work; Blanche's father, a respectable MP.
A doctor's experiments lead to the partial conquering of death.
