Tuesday, May 10, 2022, struck me as a rather sad day in Statesville’s history. It was on May 10 that the last of the furniture and other boxed-up items were moved out of the Statesville Record & Landmark building at 222 E. Broad St. The Record & Landmark had occupied the building near downtown Statesville since October 1956. Iredell County’s first newspaper was the Iredell Express, started by Eugene B. Drake in December 1857. For the first time in 164 years, there is no city newspaper office in Statesville.

During the COVID pandemic, the Record & Landmark office had been closed to the public as had many businesses across the country. The paper was still published, but the editors, reporters and other staff members worked from home creating the paper electronically before it and the Mooresville Tribune were printed at the Winston-Salem Journal location.

Having proven that the paper could be published more efficiently and at a lower cost, Lee Enterprises decided to continue having the paper published with much of the staff working from home. Lee Enterprises owns the Statesville Record & Landmark, Mooresville Tribune, Hickory Daily Record, Morganton News Herald, Marion McDowell News, Concord Independent Tribune, Winston-Salem Journal and Greensboro News & Record.