Source:Papers-merge
"Papers merge after Hearst enters field: Post-Gazette only morning publication here; is three cents: Telegraph, Sun combine: New York publisher's coming brings about big deal." Pittsburgh Press, Aug. 2, 1927, pp. 1–2. Newspapers.com 146236584, 146236610.
Four Pittsburgh newspapers have been consolidated into one morning and one afternoon newspaper as the result of the entrance of William Randolph Hearst into the Pittsburgh field.
Hearst has purchased the Chronicle-Telegraph and the Gazette-Times from its former publishers, George S. and Augustus K. Oliver. Paul Block, a Toledo, O., publisher, has bought the Post and the Sun from Arthur E. Braun and George C. Moore, trustees of the estate of the late T. H. Given.
The Gazette-Times and the Post were merged today under the title of the Post-Gazette, a 3-cent morning newspaper. It is announced this will be published by Block.
The Chronicle-Telegraph and the Sun are also merged as one afternoon newspaper under the control of Hearst.
The combination of the Sun and the Chronicle-Telegraph will publish a Sunday morning edition. The Post-Gazette will not publish on Sunday.
The Post has been for years a Democratic newspaper. The Gazette Times has been strongly Republican. The new Post-Gazette, it is announced, is to be independent. In its first editorial today it says:
"The Post-Gazette delays not a minute in announcing its faith in the principles and policies of the President of the United States. This newspaper is further mindful of the increasingly great contribution to our country's welfare which is being made by Secretary Mellon and those other loyal Pennsylvanians who are helping President Coolidge to maintain the high character of the national administration."
It was announced at the Hearst office that the Sun-Telegraph will be published by the Pitt Publishing Co., the officers of which were given as William R. Hearst, president; H. M. Bitner, vice president and publisher; A. W. Clark, secretary-treasurer, and C. W. Danziger, managing editor.
The officers of the Post-Gazette are Paul Block, president; M. F. Hanson, vice president; J. S. Welliver, secretary, and L. B. Rock, treasurer.
It was also announced at the Hearst office that the Sun-Telegraph price will remain at two cents daily.
Further, it was announced that the deal which brought about the elimination of one morning and one evening paper was through the acquisition by Hearst of the Sun, which has been merged with the Chronicle Telegraph, and the Sunday Post, which will be merged with the Sunday Gazette under the name of the Sun-Telegraph. At the same time, Hearst relinquishes to Block the six-day Gazette Times, which has been merged with the Post under the name of the Post-Gazette.
Block's statement upon assuming control reads in part:
"Today the Pittsburgh Post and Gazette-Times are published as one consolidated newspaper under the name of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. This means that from now on there will be one morning daily weekday newspaper published in Pittsburgh, the same condition as exists in other large cities such as Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis.
The statement of Braun and Moore upon relinquishing control reads in part:
"Effective today the proprietorship of the Pittsburgh Post passes from the present owners to Paul Block. Mr. Block has also bought the Pittsburgh Sun. The new owner will continue the publication of the Pittsburgh Post from the present publishing house."
"It is with keen regret that we make this announcement of our retirement from the newspaper publishing field in Pittsburgh. For 16 years the services these papers have rendered to the economic development and growing civic consciousness of this great city have been an ever-present satisfaction. Public approval of the efforts of these newspapers, reflected in a vast increase in both circulation and advertising volume, has been a constant challenge to further labors.
"Multiplying demands of other interests, however, now leave us no choice. It would not be possible longer to devote to these newspapers the time and attention requisite to fulfillment of the inescapable obligations of a publisher. There is no course, then, but to relinquish them into other hands."
Pittsburgh's newspaper history reaches back to the day of a little cluster of log houses, which was the nucleus, a century and a half ago, for the city of today.
It was in 1786—141 years ago—that the newspaper which became the Gazette Times eventually and passed yesterday into the possession of William Randolph Hearst, was founded.
The Post, of which Paul Block is announced as the publisher, came into the field in 1842.
Next to appear were The Chronicle and The Telegraph, which were later merged into one newspaper under the name of The Chronicle Telegraph, which is also one of Mr. Hearst's purchases in Pittsburgh.
The Press, a Scripps-Howard newspaper, the youngest, with one exception, of the newspapers of Pittsburgh, is the lustiest and biggest of all. It has been published since June, 1884.
The Sun was the city's newspaper baby. It was born 22 years ago.
John Scull and Joseph Hall founded The Pittsburgh Gazette. The first publication office was in a log house on the Monongahela river, at Water st., and what was then known as Chancery lane. The equipment for the office was hauled across the Allegheny mountains from Philadelphia. Hall died after he had been in Pittsburgh about six months and his interest in the paper was acquired by John Boyd.
John Scull retired as editor of the paper in 1816. Morgan Neville became the editor and John I. Scull, a son of the founder, was made the business manager.
David and M. McLean acquired the paper in 1822 and published it until 1829, when control of it passed into the hands of Neville B. Craig. Under his management it became a daily in 1833, having been a weekly and a semi-weekly up to that time.
Alexander Graham became the owner of the paper in 1840 and Craig performed the work of editor. D. N. White succeeded Craig as editor in 1841.
In 1847 Erastus Brooks had charge of the paper but about a year later D. N. White again took the helm. White remained in charge until 1856, when D. L. Eaton and Russell Errett succeeded him and conducted the paper until 1859. In that year the paper passed into the control of an organization composed of Eaton, Errett, S. Riddle and J. A. Crum. In 1866 F. B. Penniman, Josiah King, Nelson P. Reed and Thomas Houston became the owners, with Houston and King as editors.
Henry M. Long became a partner in 1871 but soon sold his interest to George W. Reed and D. L. Fleury.
In 1873 the ownership was known as King, Reed & Co., with Josiah King as editor in chief.
In 1877 the Gazette bought a controlling interest in the Commercial, a paper which had been started in 1864 by C. D. Bigham. The papers were merged and the name, The Commercial Gazette, was adopted.
The Commercial Gazette was bought by the late George T. Oliver in 1900 and six years later the Pittsburgh Times, which was owned by the late Christopher L. Magee, was bought and merged. The paper then became known as the Gazette Times and until the present there had been no further changes in the name.
Robert P. Nevin founded the Times and sold it to the company which Magee headed.
The Post became a newspaper under that name in September, 1842. It was an outgrowth of the Mercury and Manufacturer. The Post has been an organ of the Democratic party throughout its history. All other Pittsburgh papers, which endured for any great length of time, were Republican or independent.
Thomas Phillips and William H. Smith were founders of the Post but it quickly passed into the hands of a partnership known as Bigler, Sargent & Bigler. Lechy Harper and John Layton succeeded them in a year or two. John Layton died in 1854. Another partnership, Montgomery and Gilmore, bought the Post from Harper and sold it to James P. Barr. It was conducted for many years by Barr and his sons. The late T. Hart Given, then president fo the Farmers National bank, was the next owner. At his death, under the terms of his will, it passed into the control of Arthur E. Braun and George C. Moore, who had been Given's close associates in the banking business.
The Sun was started as an afternoon newspaper, 22 years ago, by the owners of the Post.
The Chronicle was the name of a newspaper founded in May, 1841, with J. Herron Foster and William H. White as joint editors. It was at first a weekly but was made a daily in 1842. Charles McKnight took over the paper in 1856, selling it in 1863 to J. G. Seibneck.
The Telegraph, which had been founded in the early seventies by H. Bucher Swoope, was consolidated with the Chronicle in 1884, and the Chronicle Telegraph was the name chosen for the new paper. It was controlled for a number of years by Col. Oliver S. Hershman and associates, who sold it to George T. Oliver about 27 years ago.
The Press, the Pittsburgh newspaper with by far the biggest circulation, was founded in 1884 by Thomas J. Keenan, Charles W. Houston, Thomas M. Bayne and others. It grew rapidly and in 1901, Col. Hershman, soon after he had sold the Chronicle Telegraph, and several associates purchased The Press.
It was not long until The Press had outgrown its Fifth ave. office and a new building had to be erected on Oliver ae., near Wood st.
The Press was being produced in this building when it was acquired by Scripps-Howard in 1923. The growth of the paper since that time has been amazing. A big new plant became a necessity with the result that The Press was established early in the present year in its new home on the Boulevard of the Allies, covering a city block, and representing the last word in construction and equipment of newspaper plants.
John Y. Chidester, who was the managing editor of The Press when it was purchased by Scripps-Howard, was made the editor of the paper by the new owners. Owen M. Phillips is the business manager and Harry C. Milholland, who has been connected with The Press for many years, the advertising manager.
There were two newspapers long identified with Pittsburgh, and which passed out of existence a few years ago. They were the Dispatch and the Leader, the former a morning and Sunday newspaper and the Leader an afternoon and Sunday paper. The owners of The Press, the Gazette times, the Post, the Chronicle Telegraph and the Sun purchased the Dispatch and the Leader and eliminated them not very long before The Press was sold to Scripps-Howard.
John W. Pittock established the Leader as a Sunday newspaper in 1865, and it became an afternoon daily in 1870. It was sold by Joseph and Theodore Nevin to Alexander P. Moore, who owned it at the time it was bought by the other Pittsburgh newspapers.
J. Herron Foster founded the Dispatch in 1846. R. C. Fleeson acquired an interest in it in 1849 and was actively identified with the paper until his death in 1863. Daniel O'Neil and Alexander W. Rook bought the paper in 1865. After their death E. M. O'Neil, brother of Daniel, produced the newspaper for many years and was succeeded by Charles A. Rook, who had charge of it when it was sold.
