Indiana-based Schurz Communications selling newspapers to GateHouse Media

MISHAWAKA, Ind. – Schurz Communications says it’s selling its publishing division, including 20 newspapers in five states, to GateHouse Media LLC.

Indiana-based Schurz, which owns the South Bend Tribune and The Herald-Times in Bloomington, announced the deal Monday. Terms were not disclosed. The family-owned company said New York-based GateHouse will assume ownership during the first quarter of the year. GateHouse currently owns 145 daily newspapers.

The Tribune reported employees were told Monday that Schurz executives and board members decided GateHouse would offer a scale of operations that can make the newspapers more competitive and successful in the long term.

The 20 publications being sold also include the Petoskey (Michigan) News-Review, the American News in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and the Herald-Mail in Hagerstown, Maryland.

Schurz was founded in 1872 by brothers-in-law Alfred Miller and Elmer Crockett, a pair of Union veterans of the Civil War, who published the first edition of the Tribune on March 9 of that year, the newspaper reported. The Tribune has been owned and operated by descendants of those two families ever since.

Schurz says it will continue investing in cloud and managed IT services and broadband operations.