At the Douglas County Historical Society, our mission is to discover, preserve, and share the history of Douglas County and its people. Our archive houses hundreds of photos, documents, and texts relating to county history. The public is welcome to research access to these records through a research request.
Start your local history research journey with us at DCHS! Our staff and research volunteers are available to help answer your questions.
Contact us to get started:
Email: historic@dchsmn.org
Telephone: 320-762-0382
Hours & Fees
Your contribution helps us take care of our archives and collections for future generations. Thank you!
Please call ahead to make an in-person research appointment!
Walk-in appointments are limited!
Research Center Hours:
Monday – Friday, 10 am – 2 pm
The following fees reflect 4 hours of research done by staff or volunteers. If research continues beyond these initial hours, you will be contacted to make arrangements.
Member Fees:
$15 per research request
Non-Member Fees:
$25 per research request
Research request results can be scanned and emailed to you in pdf or jpg format, or sent by US Postal Service – Postage and photocopies are an additional fee.
Photocopy fees:
- $0.25 per copy for 8.5 x 11 BW
- $0.50 per copy for 8.5 x 11 Color
- $0.50 per copy for 11 x 17 BW
- $1.00 per copy for 11 x 17 Color
Research Materials
- Business, Church, School, and Organization Files
- Family Files organized by family surnames. Family files may contain genealogies, biographies, obituaries, etc.
- Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths
- Obituaries from area newspapers 1866 to 2024
- Census Records
- Douglas County Naturalization records
- Cemeteries and Cemetery records
- Douglas County history reference books
- Telephone books and city directories
- Veterans files
- Oral history interviews
- Maps – township, county, towns
- Photo Archives – people and places of Douglas County
… and much more!
Douglas County Newspapers
- Alexandria Citizen 1896 -1944
- Alexandria Daily News 1969 -70
- Alexandria Park Region Echo 1908 -1996
- Alexandria Post News 1872 -1920
- Alexandria Republican 1894 -1897
- Ashby Avalanche 1883 -1886
- Ashby Post 1903 -1919
- Brandon Echo 1896 -1908
- Douglas County News 1878 -1894 and 1832 -1833
- Douglas County Sentinel 1893 -1895
- Echo Press 1996-2005, 2007- present day, preceding quarter
- Evansville Enterprise 1890 -1902 and 1922 -1946
- Grant County Farmer 1890 -1896
- Hoffman Advocate 1906
- Lake Region Echo 1970 -1987
- Lake Region Farmer 1955 -1962
- Lake Region Press 1962 -1996
- Osakis Observer 1881
- Osakis Review 1891 -1988
- Parkers Prairie Independent 1922 -1927
- Rural MN News 1958 -1986
- West Douglas County Record 1981 -1986 (Evansville)