Joseph D. Scanlan
1876 – 1939

Inducted October 25, 1958

Joseph Scanlan, editor and publisher of the Miles City Daily Star from 1911 to 1939, was born in Scranton, Pa., in 1876.

He expressed his independence at the age of 22, leaving the security of his father’s business to become a cub reporter with the Superior Evening Telegram in Wisconsin in 1898. He remained there for four years, and in successive moves worked for the Duluth News Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota, the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota, and the Anaconda Standard, the Missoulian and the Red Lodge Picket in Montana.

Scanlan had acquired enough money for a stake in newspaper publishing, and in 1909 he purchased the Miles City Independent Weekly. Two years later he established the Miles City Daily Star, of which he was editor and publisher until his death in 1939. From 1918 to 1919 he was president of the Montana Press Association.

Throughout his life Scanlan was active in the Republican Party. Among the offices he held were chairman of the Montana State Central Committee; member of the Republican National Committee, from 1920 to 1924 and 1930 to 1932; and registrar, U.S. Land Office. He was a personal friend of President Herbert Hoover, who visited Scanlan at his home in Miles City.

From the pages of his Daily Star, Scanlan voiced his humanitarian and political principles. He was militant when he was championing a cause he believed was right. Among his most notable achievements was realization of the Tongue River storage reservoir near Decker.

Always seeing beyond the boundaries of his immediate neighborhood, Scanlan’s views represented southeastern Montana. He was an influential leader of his community, and members of his newspaper staff had the highest respect for him.

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