Craig and Claire Nagel held copies of the Echo in their Pequot Lakes home. Craig held the Dec. 26, 1974, edition of the Country Echo, which featured a photo of the Nagels' daughter, Kia, age 3, and her cousin, as well as Claire's hand-drawn letters and loon logo. Claire held a more recent edition, Jan. 12, 2012.

On March 2, 1972, the first newspaper was published, though it was called the Country Echo then. Three men - brothers Larry and Ray Glassman, as well as Bill Walker, all immigrants from Illinois - founded Country Printing in 1972. Their intention was to start a free distribution shopper featuring advertising.

However, mailing costs were prohibitive, so they changed direction to publish a newspaper to take advantage of second class mailing rates.

That's when Craig Nagel came on board as the Echo's first editor, starting the newspaper from scratch. Nagel and Walker were friends in college, and Walker knew Nagel had co-edited their college newspaper and had a journalism background.

After starting the newspaper, the businessmen learned it was illegal to use their government-backed Small Business Administration loan to finance a newspaper.

So the Country Echo moved to a building that stood where the Pequot Lakes Post Office lot is now, while Country Printing remained at its West Lake Street location.

Nagel soon bought out the Glassmann brothers' shares in the Echo and after resetting the loan, the whole operation moved to West Lake Street.

"I didn't see too much of him those days," said his wife, Claire.

Craig would work all day, drive the 23 miles to his home north of Pine River for dinner, and then return to Pequot Lakes to cover a meeting or do other work. He had a cot in the upper level of the print shop.

"It rapidly got to the point I was working 70, 80, even 90 hours a week," Craig said.

Country Printing eventually did start a shopper, so duties included writing and editing stories, selling ads and print jobs and running the print shop.

When Craig had to let his pressman go for financial reasons, he got out the press manual and read about how to do offset printing, turning out his first two-color job at about 2 a.m.

"I ended up being a pressman for about half a year," Craig said.

Back then the Country Echo was printed in house. Today the newspaper is printed at the Brainerd Dispatch. Each copy cost just 10 cents in the early days, compared to today's price of 75 cents, and featured a full cover photo.

Steve Kohls, longtime Brainerd Dispatch photographer, was one of the first full-time photographers to work at the Country Echo.

Before the first edition of the Echo went to press, Craig asked Claire to draw a logo.

"I hated the name 'Country Echo.' That was the three owners' decision. I was pushing for 'Chronicle' or something unimaginative," Craig said with a laugh.

Claire hand-drew the letters and added an outline of a loon, which Craig then fell in love with. The typeface has changed, but the Lake Country Echo still features a loon as its logo.

The Country Echo started as a very environmentally focused newspaper.

"We realized early on that most people lived up here because they loved the woods and the wildness, so we tried to have good photos and informative articles about that," Craig said.

He recalled the great lynx controversy. Someone sent in a photo of a trapped lynx, thinking readers would like to see it. But the lynx was dead, and the newspaper received letters from people outraged about trapping.

"It began a lengthy interchange of letters, and as editor I was like, 'yes!'" Craig said, noting it built circulation. "It was a healthy interchange."

Craig believes the Echo was one of the first newspapers in Minnesota to switch from hot linotype to cold, computer-generated type. And he was told the Country Echo's use of a loon was the first time a loon was used as a logo for a newspaper.

Craig's brother, Dick, now a Spanish teacher at Pequot Lakes High School, moved to Pequot Lakes in 1974 to help Craig edit the newspaper. He helped out for about a year, and Craig said Dick was instrumental in the Echo surviving and growing.

Later, Paul Thiede came aboard as an investor and took over as editor.

In 1977, five years after its beginnings, the owners sold Country Printing to Bob Francis of Palm Beach, Florida, with the agreement that Craig stay on to manage the business. Francis owned the business for about a year, and then Andy Andolshek of Crosslake bought it, again with the understanding that Craig would manage it.

In September 1980, Keith and Martha Anderson bought the business and proceeded to upgrade its printing equipment and expand the reach of its publications. The Andersons added the word "Lake" to the newspaper's name, so it became the Lake Country Echo. And Country Printing became Echo Publishing & Printing.

They bought the Pine River Journal in 1988.

Craig left the business soon after the Andersons bought it.

"It was a wonderful part of our lives," Martha Anderson said of owning Echo Publishing. "We loved it; we just loved it. It was fun to be part of the community as a group and it prospered."

Keith was publisher who wrote a popular column, Off the Top, and Martha did the office work. Martha said the community was so welcoming and they enjoyed getting involved.

The Andersons hired former longtime editor Lou Hoglund in 1982.

"Lou was a big part of our success," Martha said. "He really cared. He gave everything for the paper. He got to know everybody. Everybody knew him. He loved it."

Keith and Martha lived in Pequot Lakes and retired in 1995, when their son, Peter, became publisher/owner until he sold the business in 1999 to the current owners, Morris Communications of Augusta, Georgia.

Hoglund said working for the Lake Country Echo in the 1980s and 1990s was a privilege and an exciting time.

"I really can't overlook what a joy it was to work with the many talented and fun employees at Echo Publishing over the years," Hoglund said in an email. "We really had an interesting cast of characters - locals, transplants, young, "mature" - and a few renegades!

"The area was really starting to emerge as a vibrant, lively recreation area and it was really beginning to grow," he said. "Granted, tourism and recreation had been an important component of the economy since the turn of the century, but the 'modern' era of travel-hospitality really manifested itself over the past 30 to 40 years, closely paralleling the history of the Echo."

While Craig and Clare Nagel were the initial visionaries, Hoglund said Keith and Martha Anderson set out to serve a large geographical area of lakes, waters, small cities and "neighborhoods."

"They deployed a successful strategic approach in that the Echo would become 'the newspaper of the lakes,'" he said.

One of the challenges in covering such a broad area, each community with a strong sense of identity, was to have an honest respect for all of the folks and businesses who helped build the area the previous six or seven decades while also acknowledging the new development, the "new money" coming up from the Twin Cities, and the transplant seasonal and year-round residents, Hoglund said.

"It was a balancing act that I think we accomplished fairly well. I believe we were committed to being not only a Pequot Lakes paper, but a hometown paper for Nisswa, Breezy Point, Crosslake, Ideal Corners, Lake Shore, Mission area, the Gull area and the Whitefish area.

"There were growing pains along the way, and we made mistakes, but by and large our rising circulation and readership during those years seemed to confirm that we were on the right track," Hoglund said.

Craig Nagel commented on the Echo's longevity: "The hardest thing in business is to create a good and lasting company. To do that, you focus on providing excellent service and products, not just on making money. And you work at finding the best people possible to do that."

Today, the Lake Country Echo staff continues the tradition of hard work and passionate local coverage, said publisher Pete Mohs.

"Our staff is small, but we rarely miss covering an area event," he said. "We work nights and weekends to cover local city council and school board meetings, year-round outdoor activities and sporting events."

Mohs said the Lake Country Echo staff has been honored for its coverage over the 40 years, including winning three top editorial awards at last year's Minnesota Newspaper Association convention. He noted that changes are on the horizon for Echo Publishing & Printing staff.

"Our company is financially successful, but we're in the process of consolidating our operation to the Brainerd Dispatch office," he said. "We will keep our presence in our communities, but we need to consolidate because of aging equipment and a reduced staff size. We will rotate having one person work in the Pequot Lakes office, but the majority of our production will be done from the Dispatch office."

Mohs said the focus of the Lake Country Echo coverage will intensify in the future because of electronic advancements.

"We're in the process of having our pineandlakes.com website updated," he said. "That will allow us to provide more breaking news and daily sports updates on our website and on mobile devices. We can then expand on those each week in the Lake Country Echo. We will be able to satisfy the information needs for all of our readers."