This week marks five years since LALtoday first sent out a newsletter at 6 a.m. Since then, we’ve been sharing Lakeland’s local news updates, city history, food + drink recommendations, and more with you every morning. Stroll with us down memory lane to look back at a few of our “firsts.”

Newsletter

The very first time we appeared in your inbox, it was to welcome our earliest subscribers. In the inaugural newsletter, we promised to share need-to-know Lakeland information, from development updates to restaurant recommendations. Some things never change.

Here are five of our top stories since 2018:

Instagram post

After hitting “send” on our morning newsletter, we took to Instagram to share our very first post. Since then, we’ve shared 3,800+ posts and grown to over 28,000 followers. Push us towards that goal by following us to get even more local news every day.

Remember our launch party here at Cob & Pen? | Photo by @thelaltoday

Events

We’ve been helping you plan your week since the very beginning of LALtoday. Looking back at our first list of August events, you can see some that are still going strong, like the downtown Food Truck Rally or singer-songwriter nights at Hillcrest Coffee. Also on the list? Our launch party that we held at Cob & Pen that week.

You’re not supposed to share birthday wishes, but ours is to continue sharing more Swan City content with our readers for many more years. You can help support our mission by becoming an LALtoday member, forwarding our newsletter to a friend, or following along with our social media posts. Here's to many more years.