The first issue of the St. Charles Herald was dated February 15, 1873. It is understood that this newspaper was started and owned by ex-Governor Georg Michael Hahn. With a friend, Marsellus Vallas, Hahn opened an office on the corner of Hahn and Front streets in Hahnville.
The Herald was considered Hahn’s “mouthpiece” and was quick to include and defend his views during Reconstruction when he was constantly being criticized as a vocal Union activist. During the early years several people managed the newspaper and ownership changed several times after Hahn’s death in 1886. The Herald was purchased in 1888 by J. C. Triche and Company from T. T. Boudouin for $75.
Triche served as secretary of the St. Charles Police Jury, as deputy clerk of court, and was appointed clerk of registration for St. Charles Parish for Governor Nicholls in 1890. Triche’s nephew, J. B. Martin, Jr., later ran The Herald for the family out of a small office in front of his home in Hahnville before he became superintendent of schools of St. Charles Parish.
He was never officially listed as editor. J. C. Triche, Jr., then took over but soon enlisted in the armed forces when World War I began. W. A. Brady then assumed temporary editorship. J. C. Triche, Sr., died while the younger Triche was at war in Europe. Immediately upon his return he took over management of The Herald, also working for Shell Oil Company in Norco. When Triche, Jr., married, his sister Polly assumed the role of editing but retained her brother’s name as official editor. When Polly married, sister Beatrice took over managing the paper. Lucien T. Triche, J. C. Triche, Sr.’s, other son, was listed as editor but was never active in that role. Beatrice kept The Herald alive for as long as possible.
On August 19, 1954, 65 years after her father purchased The Herald, Beatrice Triche Troxler sold the newspaper to the Henry E. “Gene” Yoes, Jr., family. Gene’s journalism studies had been interrupted when he left LSU to enlist in the armed forces for four years during World War II. When discharged in 1946, he reentered LSU and received his bachelor of arts degree in journalism. The Herald was run as a family business with Iola Yoes serving as office manager, H. E. Yoes III as associate editor, Cynthia Yoes as graphic designer, and the remaining six Yoes children serving in one capacity or another.
Thirty-five years later his son, Patrick, and his wife Gail purchased the newspaper. It continued in operation until 1993 when a merger with the Louisiana Publishing Company’s St. Charles Guide, owned by the Lottinger family of Luling, took place to become the St. Charles Herald-Guide. Louisiana Publishing Company bought out the Yoes’s portion of the publication in 2006. The St. Charles Herald-Guide serves as the official journal of St. Charles Parish.
This text is copyright © material by Marilyn Richoux, Joan Becnel and Suzanne Friloux, from St. Charles Parish, Louisiana: A Pictorial History, 2010.
