The Chronicle, the oldest independently owned weekly newspaper covering Springfield and surrounding communities for more than a century, is closing, its owners confirmed Tuesday, August 11.

In an editorial, executive editor and part-owner Erin Tierney-Heggenstaller candidly outlined the struggles the paper faced following the pandemic. The newspaper, she wrote, had run “out of options, out of funds” and reached the end of its “timeline.”

Eugene Weekly reached out to Chronicle staff for comment and was told of the upcoming announcement in lieu of an interview. 

Across the state, locally owned newspapers are dwindling according to the Fund for Oregon Rural Journalism. More than a quarter of Oregon’s small-town newspapers have closed in the past 20 years, and 68 percent of Oregon’s incorporated cities lack a local news source. 

Noel and Denise Nash purchased the paper as The Creswell Chronicle, in early 2019.  The Chronicle changed its name from The Creswell Chronicle to The Chronicle in 2020 and moved its office to Springfield in 2021. Tierney-Heggenstaller became a co-owner in January 2025.

The Chronicle tried to weather those pressures. But keeping the paper alive came at a cost. Like many businesses across the country, The Chronicle took out a Small Business Administration loan during the pandemic. But when the federal government ended the COVID-19 EIDL Hardship Accommodation Plan in March 2025, the newspaper’s monthly payments returned to full principal and interest, Tierney-Heggenstaller writes.

A significant portion of The Chronicle’s revenue then went toward servicing that debt. In an effort to cut costs, the staff gave up its physical newsroom in April 2025 and began operating out of libraries, coffee shops and bookstores through what it called its “community newsroom” model.

But the savings from giving up a physical newsroom were ultimately outweighed by the financial pressure of repaying the SBA loan.

In her editorial, Tierney-Heggenstaller reflected on the work, her coworkers and the community the newspaper served, writing: “Despite macro issues like federal hostility, economic downturns, political extremism, and oligarchs working to undermine the First Amendment, the reality came down to home: not enough residents subscribed, and not enough local businesses advertised.”

The paper had been telling the stories of Springfield, Cottage Grove, Creswell, and Pleasant Hill since 1909 originally as the Creswell Chronicle. 

Now, after 117 years, Tierney-Heggenstaller wrote, “We fought until the very last line.”