Port Townsend Leader

Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader
TypeWeekly newspaper
FounderW.L. Jones
PublisherLloyd Mullen
EditorJames Robinson
Founded1889
LanguageEnglish
Headquarters226 Adams Street
Port Townsend, Washington
Circulation7,065 (as of 2022)[1]
ISSN1532-4788
OCLC number43485202
Websiteptleader.com

The Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader is a weekly newspaper published in Port Townsend, Washington.[2]

History

On October 2, 1889, W.L. Jones published the first edition of The Morning Leader in Port Townsend, Washington.[3][4] In May 1890, Jones, due to poor health, sold the Leader to J.E. Clarke and Alfred H. Winterode for $15,000.[5][6] That December, a stock company called Key City Publishing Co., acquired the paper. The business was managed by J. Will Lysons and Albert Searle. Lysons succeeded Clarke as editor.[7] Unbeknownst to the public at the time, John McGraw was the majority stock owner.[8] In

In November 1892, McGraw was elected the second governor of Washington.[9] In April 1893, Governor McGraw sold his controlling shares to Lysons and Newton W. O'Rear.[10] Later that year O'Rear was put on trial for forgery of county warrants and orders.[11][12] He was acquitted.[13] In 1896, a newspaper falsely reported Jones, who founded the Leader, had committed suicide. This was disproven when he showed up to work the next day.[14] In May 1906, Wallace B. Jessup bought the Leader and succeeded O'Rear as editor.[15] Winslow Morgan McCurdy became the owner about two years later.[16] W.B. McCurdy's father William Augustus Curdy Jr., immigrated to Port Townsend from New Brunswick, Canada and was a cousin of the city's co-founder Francis Pettygrove.[17]

In February 1922, W.M. McCurdy was appointed postmaster of Port Townsend.[18] In July 1928, W.M. McCurdy died at age 50 from the effects of Blood-poisoning contracted while blackberry picking.[19] His son Richard F. McCurdy then operated the paper. In November 1942, R.F. McCurdy enlisted in the U.S. Army Infantry during World War II. He was sent to Germany in 1944 where he was injured by a projectile. He eventually bought a majority interest in the Leader upon returning home.[17] In 1960, the McCurdy family moved to Mallorca.[20]

In 1967, Frank W. Garred bought the paper from R. F. McCurdy.[21] At some point Garred became Leader co-owner with Scott Wilson. In January 1998, the two bought a 50% stake in Olympic View Publishing, a media company founded by Brown M. Maloney that published several newspapers including the Forks Forum and the Sequim Gazette.[22] Maloney bought out Garred and Wilson from OVP four years later.[23] In 1999, Scott Wilson and his wife Jennifer James-Wilson acquired full ownership of the Leader and Garred retired. In 2016, the Wilsons sold the Leader to brothers Lloyd Mullen and J. Louis Mullen.[24]

References

  1. ^ "The Decline of Local News and Its Impact on Democracy" (PDF). League of Women Voters of Washington Education Fund. 2022-11-14.
  2. ^ "Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader (Port Townsend, Wash.; Port Townsend, Wa) 2000-Current". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2026-02-20.
  3. ^ "Our Morning Leader Greeting". Port Townsend Daily Leader. October 2, 1889. p. 6.
  4. ^ "Local Paragraphs | News of the City and Provinces Briefly Told". The Victoria Daily Times. Victoria, British Columbia. p. 4.
  5. ^ "Washington State News". The News Tribune. Tacoma, Washington. May 28, 1890. p. 6.
  6. ^ "Announcement". Port Townsend Daily Leader. May 29, 1890. p. 3.
  7. ^ "Port Townsend Leader Changes Hands". The Tacoma Daily Ledger. December 10, 1890. p. 4.
  8. ^ "Trading Old Friends For Enemies". The Tacoma Daily Ledger. November 5, 1892. p. 1.
  9. ^ "Olympia Predictions. | John McGraw Is Governor Beyond a Doubt". The Spokesman-Review. Spokane, Washington. November 10, 1892. p. 1.
  10. ^ "Not Its First Sale". The Tacoma Daily Ledger. April 20, 1893. p. 8.
  11. ^ "Port Townsend Editor in Court". The News Tribune. Tacoma, Washington. November 14, 1893. p. 1.
  12. ^ "Case Against the Custom House Editor". The Post-Intelligencer. Seattle, Washington. November 17, 1893. p. 2.
  13. ^ "Notice". The Washington Standard. Olympia, Washington. November 24, 1892. p. 2.
  14. ^ "Killed Him Off Up North | A Local Newspaper Man "Suicided" At Port Townsend". Los Angeles Herald. Los Angeles, California. April 1, 1896. p. 8.
  15. ^ "Change in Port Townsend Paper". The Tacoma Daily Ledger. May 19, 1906. p. 12.
  16. ^ "Local And Personal". The Olympic-Tribune. December 4, 1908. p. 3.
  17. ^ a b "Dick McCurdy, former PT newspaper owner, dies". Peninsula Daily News. Port Angeles, Washington. November 6, 1987. p. 3.
  18. ^ "Pioneer Named For Postmaster At Pt. Townsend". Peninsula Daily News. Port Angeles, Washington. February 2, 1922. p. 1.
  19. ^ "Blood Poisoning Causes Death Of Townsend Editor". Peninsula Daily News. Port Angeles, Washington. July 16, 1928. p. 3.
  20. ^ "Pt. Townsend editor, family to live in Majorca". Peninsula Daily News. Port Angeles, Washington. December 17, 1960. p. 6.
  21. ^ "Port Townsend newspaper going under new ownership". Peninsula Daily News. Port Angeles, Washington. August 31, 1967. p. 1.
  22. ^ "Olympic View Publishing names Frank Garred as new publisher". Forks Forum-Peninsula Herald. January 14, 1998. p. 6.
  23. ^ "Maloney returns as Gazette publisher". The Sequim Gazette. January 16, 2002. p. 4.
  24. ^ "PT Leader sold to news publishng family". Peninsula Daily News. Port Angeles, Washington. September 18, 2016. p. 1.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.