The Akron News-Reporter is a weekly newspaper published in Akron, Colorado, by Prairie Mountain Publishing (Boulder, Colo.), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group (Denver, Colo.) itself a subsidiary of Digital First Media (New York City). It primarily serves the Town of Akron, the Town of Otis, and Washington County, in the State of Colorado, United States of America. The newspaper is published every Wednesday with a current circulation of about 2000.
History
Early Akron Newspapers
About two years before the Town of Akron was incorporated as a statutory town (September 22, 1887), its first newspaper,Colorado GenWeb, Washington County Site the Akron Pioneer Press, began publication on November 1, 1885,Montgomery, Hilda and Reese, Myra and staff of the Washington County Museum Association, 100 Years in Pictures: 1882-1982, Akron Washington County Colorado, June 20, 1982 and was published continuously for 38 years. It is partially digitized (earliest, Dec. 7, 1888) and is available for viewing online at the Colorado Historical Newspapers Collection.
The following table summarizes the early newspapers of Akron.
Start date End date Name of Newspaper Years in Operation 11/1/1885 11/9/1923 Akron Pioneer Press 38.01886 1887 Colorado Beetle 11886 1889 Akron Herald 31886 1892 Akron Star 61888 1889 Akron Tribune 11888 1889 Washington County Democrat 11893 1896 Washington County Republican 41893 1895 Akron Advance 2 9/30/1897 5/24/1912 Washington County Leader 14.6 10/13/1910 2/28/1929 Akron News 18.4 7/1/1916 2/28/1929 Akron Reporter 12.7 3/7/1929 Present Akron News-Reporter 80
Progenitors of The Akron News-Reporter
Akron News/Semi-Weekly News Ownership The original newspaper began publication on October 13, 1910, as the Akron News. The News went through several changes of ownership through February 1929 as summarized in the table below.Harper, Jane, Historian, Colorado Press Association; The Press Gang, Colorado Newspapers 1859-1997 Chap. Visions, Cooleys & Graves.
Owner Editor(s) Beginning Date F.C. Pinch, founder F.C. Pinch 10/13/1910 F.W. McIntyre F.W. McIntyre 8/14/1911 Isaac Pelton I. Pelton, F.T. Hawks, T.A. Erb May 1912 Isaac Pelton D.C. Thomas Dec 1916 Isaac Pelton D.C. Thomas, John S. Evans Dec 1917 Isaac Pelton John S. Evans Nov 1918 Charles M Cockrum C.M. Cockrum, Worth Miller Apr 1923 Worth Miller Worth Miller 1928 R.B. Cooley R.B. Cooley & C.L. Miller-Cooley 2/28/1929
Akron Reporter Ownership Another, rival newspaper, The Akron Reporter, began publication on July 1, 1916. It, too, went through several changes in ownership until February, 1929, though fewer than the News. The changes are summarized in the following table.
Owner(s) Editor(s) Beginning Date F.C. and R.M. Wester, founders F.C. and R.M. Wester 7/1/1916 Robert A. Shook Presley Pool Jan 1922 Presley Pool Presley Pool Steen M. Johnson S.M. Johnson Summer 1927 R.B. Cooley R.B. Cooley & C.L. Miller-Cooley 2/28/1929
The Akron News-Reporter
On February 28, 1929, Robert B. Cooley merged the Akron Semi-Weekly News and the Akron Reporter. The first issue of the combined papers, the Akron News-Reporter, was published on March 7, 1929. On the front page was news of Herbert Hoover's inauguration and a four-column photo of the new President and Vice President Charles Curtis.
There was a small notice in the lower right corner: On the Passing Of The Reporter After almost twenty months of ownership of the Akron Reporter the undersigned is transferring the title and ownership of its physical equipment to Mr. R.B. Cooley, formerly of the Otis Independent. Mr. Cooley, having purchased the Akron News, is merging the two newspapers into a single entity under one name. This is a commendable move and should have the whole-hearted support of all the citizens of the community, advertisers and subscribers. —S.M. Johnson
And in the lower left corner the News-Reporter was introduced: This issue marks a consolidation of two Akron newspapers, the Akron Semi-Weekly News and the Akron Reporter. The new publication has been christened the Akron News-Reporter, a name that carries the thought of the two former publications, which was the primary idea in its choice. The Akron News-Reporter will be a weekly, as it is the general opinion of the businessmen of the town that a twice-weekly is not to their best interest and that a weekly publication will be much more satisfactory to all concerned. The subscription lists will be combined, those having paid-up subscriptions to both papers will receive the benefit by having their credit applied on the revised list. Those whose time has [not] expired on one paper or the other will be credited with the unexpired time, and those who were receiving but one will now receive the consolidated paper, so there will be no grounds for complaint of any subscriber to either paper. It is our intention to give the people of Akron and community the very best weekly newspaper that we are capable of producing and the very best newspaper that the town and community can afford. Your interests are our interests and with that idea in mind we will endeavor to publish a real newspaper. You be the judge.
The News-Reporter introduction was not signed.
Cooley Sons Carry On
The News-Reporter was owned and published by R.B. Cooley and his wife C.L. Miller-Cooley until 1955 when they relinquished control to their son C. Coyne Cooley and nephew Merton Beth Cooley, both of whom had been active in its operation since its inception. They operated the newspaper under an oral partnership until they reduced it to a written partnership on September 20, 1977, dba The Akron News-Reporter.Partnership Agreement, 20th day of September, 1977, signed Coyne Cooley/Merton B. Cooley
Equipment through the 50s and 60s The News-Reporter had the following newspaper and job printing equipment through the two decades of the 1950s and 1960s.The Colorado Editor, official publication of the Colorado Press Association, Vol XLI, No. 11, February 1967
Type Casting Linotype machine Intertype Machine
Newspaper Printing Press Miehle hand-fed flatbed cylinder press Newspaper folding machine
Letterpresses The Akron News-Reporter supplemented its newspaper business with job printing (letterheads, envelopes, bills, posters, announcements, and other miscellaneous small-piece printing work).
Chandler & Price Hand Fed Platen Press Kluge Automatic-Feed Platen Job Press Lee Hand-fed Flatbed Cylinder Press
The End of an Era
Coyne and Beth had operated the News-Reporter for 24 years when on July 2, 1979, they sold the newspaper to Danny L. Reneau and C. Bryce Wilkins dba Akron Publishing Co., thus ending the 67-year Cooley Newspaper Dynasty in Eastern Colorado.
Transfers of Ownership after the Cooley Era
Reneau and Wilkins sold the News-Reporter in May 1989 to American Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Hollinger Corporation of Toronto, Ontario. In 1990, Karen Ashley was named editor, Bonnie Miller, general manager, and Anita Kraich, ad director.
Seven years later on April 4, 1996, the News-Reporter and other weekly newspapers of American Publishing were sold to MediaNews Group. Editor Karen Ashley wrote
It's a part of the human condition that we resist change. We become comfortable with the established routine, the familiar rut. Now, however, we at the Akron News-Reporter are announcing a new change in ownership....We received official notification [our newspaper] and other Colorado newspapers owned by American Publishing have been sold to NewsMedia (sic) of Denver...
MediaNews, in turn, formed a subsidiary, the Eastern Colorado Publishing Co, comprising the Akron News-Reporter and several other Eastern Colorado newspapers. According to SEC filings in 2002 the subsidiary comprised the following newspapers: Newspaper Colo. Location Fort Morgan Times Fort Morgan Journal-Advocate Sterling Lamar Daily News Lamar Akron News Reporter Akron Brush News-Tribune Brush Julesburg Advocate Julesburg Burlington Record Burlington Estes Park Trail Gazette Estes Park
On February 2, 2006, the E. W. Scripps Company and MediaNews Group Inc. formed a partnership to operate both companies’ newspapers throughout the USA. The newspapers of MediaNews' Eastern Colorado Publishing Co. were merged with those operated by Scripps in eastern Colorado, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Colorado Daily, and the Broomfield Enterprise, to form a new subsidiary, the Prairie Mountain Publishing Company with headquarters in Boulder, Colorado. Scripps left the partnership in 2009.
The Cooley Newspaper Family
Twin Brothers Become Newspapermen Robert Berton Cooley (Bert) and his twin brother Herbert Merton (Mert) were born in McGregor, Iowa, October 15, 1875. About the turn of the 20th century the brothers moved to Nebraska. Bert was married to Carrie Louella Miller (Lou) in 1902 in Plainview, Nebr. This union produced three sons, Orville Dale, Clifford Coyne, and Robert Miller. Mert was married to Elizabeth Holliday in Knox County Nebraska and to this union two sons were born, Ronald Delos and Merton Beth.
Herbert Merton was the first twin to get into the newspaper business when in 1906 he formed a partnership with a Mr Lawrence to operate the Crofton (Nebraska) Progress.[Library of Congress MARC record LCCN: sn 95070385; The Crofton Journal (microform) Crofton, Neb. 1906-current]
About the same time the first edition of a competing newspaper, the Crofton Journal was published 7 Jun 1906 with editors and publishers Peterson & Alwine. It changed hands as follows: 1907, Robinson; 1908, Needham & McCoy.Crofton, Nebraska Centennial History Book Vol 1, Crofton Centennial History Book Committee and Crofton Centennial, Inc. 1991, Crofton (Neb.)
On 7 Dec 1911 the Crofton Journal merged with the Crofton Progress. It is unclear whom the owner(s) of the merged newspaper were at this point but by 1913 Herbert Merton Cooley had become sole proprietor purchasing it from J.B. McCoy.
Bert and Lou taught school in Plainview, Nebraska, until 1910 when they migrated westward to prove up on a homestead northwest of Flagler, Colorado. About two years later on January 12, 1912 Bert founded the Otis Independent at Otis, Colorado.
In a tragic automobile accident in 1914, Mert was drowned in the Missouri River after a car in which he was a passenger drove off a pontoon bridge near Yankton, South Dakota.Yankton Press and Dakotan, Nov 4, 1914 Bert gave up the Otis Independent and moved the family back to Crofton to assume control of his brother's newspaper and the parenting of his two sons, Ronald and Beth. But in 1916, because of a worsening allergy condition, Bert sold the Journal and returned to Colorado to resume operation of the Otis Independent, this time with two more "sons" in tow.
Bert continued to operate the Independent until the fall of 1928 when, in a trade, he swapped the Otis Independent for ownership in the Monte Vista Tribune, Monte Vista, Colorado, now the Monte Vista Journal. Within a few months, Bert disposed of the Tribune, went to Akron, Colo., where he bought the Akron Semi-Weekly News and the Akron Reporter combining the two papers on February 28, 1929, into the Akron News-Reporter.
A Cooley Newspaper Dynasty Forms For twenty five years beginning in 1912 the sons had worked off and on at their father's newspaper, each deciding to become a newspaperman at one time or another.Cooley, Dale, "Cooley family out of newspapering after 67 years", The Limon Leader, 19 May 1994
Dale started helping as a printer's devil when he was just a youngster, and continued to work with his dad through high school and college, where he earned a degree in journalism at the University of Denver.The Limon Leader, Vol. 83, No. 29; Thursday, May 19, 1994 Although he had initially wanted to become a newspaperman, he, instead, took a teaching job at Otis High SchoolCurrent Otis Jr/Sr High School home page and remained there until 1936 when he returned to Akron to work at the Akron News-Reporter.