'The paper was started by Augustine Walker. A printer by trade, he responded to interest shown by the communities of Gnowangerup and Ravensthorpe, who wanted someone to start a newspaper in their towns. He decided to move to Gnowangerup and transported a printing press, which was built in 1872. The Gnowangerup Star and Tambellup-Ongerup Gazette was launched with its first issue on 21 August 1915. The town already had a newspaper - the
Gnowangerup Times, an off-shoot of Katanning's Great Southern Herald, which had begun in 1912. However, the Times folded in March 1918.
The Star changed its name to the
Gnowangerup Star, with its first edition of the new masthead published on 31 January 1942.
Augustine Walker's son, Isaac, who was generally called Zic, was born in 1914 and started working at his father's newspaper in 1930, before taking over as editor in 1944, a position he
held until his death in 1998.
Isaac's wife Margaret took over until the paper closed in 2003.
The Star began with a circulation of 150 in 1915 and rose to a peak of 1,000 in the mid-1970s, but in recent years its circulation decreased to between 600 and 800.'
Source: Marsh, David. 'Hot Metal Ends In Western Australia'. Australian Newspaper History Group Newsletter No. 24, October 2003 p.13-15.
