J. J. Davies, who dressed niftily and with a tall silk hat, arrived in the new town of Dexter, Iowa, in 1871 and started publishing the Dexter Herald–a four-page, seven-column sheet, with type set by hand. It was one of the first papers established in Dallas County.
At a price of $2 per year, it eventually reached almost 2000 subscribers, being the first newspaper west of Des Moines, with nothing but the Stuart Locomotive as competition.
In 1881, new management changed the name to The Sentinel.
In 1900 and 1901, The Daily Sentinel was published daily–four pages of mostly advertising with a few lines of news.
In 1907, the Ross Brothers, then the publishers, installed a Hoe press and a large gasoline engine for a complete power plant.
Keith Neal, son of O. S. and Nellie Neal, was the editor from 1920-1922, when he moved to Des Moines to become editor of the Beaverdale News.
L. S. Heins published the Dexter newspaper the longest, from 1944-1960.
In later years The Dexter Sentinel was published jointly with The Redfield Review, and eventually became The Dexfield Review Sentinel.
History of Dexter, Iowa–1968 Centennial book, pages 25-28.
The Dexter Museum has bound copies of the Dexter newspapers. They are fragile.