BANGOR DAILY NEWS YESTERDAY AND TODAY
Readers sat at their breakfast tables last week, coffee cups inhand, and pored over printed reports concerning carnage in Iraq,where to build Bangor's new police station, and the passing of RonaldReagan and Ray Charles.
One hundred fifteen years before, things weren't so different atthe Bangor Daily News. The paper's June 18, 1889, edition trumpeted asimilar blend of local and world news. In the year when BenjaminHarrison was president, locally, Seventh-day Adventists were meetingin Carmel, and, elsewhere, Kansas and West Virginia were ravaged byflooding.
But in one respect things were quite different that day in 1889:Readers accustomed to broadsheets stuffed with advertising and littlenews soon noticed this black-andwhite upstart. The very first editionof the Bangor Daily News rewrote local history by dishing upsomething brash and wonderful: news, news and more news.
On its first anniversary in 1890, the paper, with more than alittle hubris, reported, 'The News elected Mayor Blake; ... and itbrought about cleaner streets; ... it reorganized the police force;it made the Fourth of July celebration last year a success; and italways has and always will encourage every enterprise that can be gotto locate in Bangor and increase our local industries.' Thomas J.Stewart, a shipping magnate and failed congressional candidate, dieda year after founding the paper, a virtual twin of the flamboyant NewYork Herald.
Stewart's novice sons took control, cutting expenses and thepaper's 'fire-alarm' headlines in a fight for its life. Spiralingnewsprint costs, competition from the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier,and financial depression nearly killed the paper.
An unlikely figure wouldn't let that happen, however.
J. Norman Towle, who ran his father's Broad Street grain business,stepped in with plenty of capital and saved the NEWS from almostcertain death. Backed by other investors, Towle bought the paper in1895 and set about boosting circulation and the newspaper'sreputation.
'I think he realized that with the advent of the trolleys and[later] automobiles, the grain business's days were numbered,' saidcurrent NEWS publisher Richard J. Warren, Towle's great-grandson, ina 1989 centennial history of the paper.
Warren, known as 'Rick' to the paper's more than 300 employees, isthe NEWS' fourth-generation publisher and the fifth member of hisfamily to hold that title.
Like his publisher predecessors - his father, Richard K.
Warren, grandparents Fred and Lillis Jordan, and greatgrandfatherTowle - Warren shuns the limelight, crediting the paper's success tothe people who have made it a respected newspaper of record.
'I am tremendously proud of the people I work with and have workedwith over the past 20 years,' Warren said in a recent statement,noting that the paper's 115th anniversary coincides with his 20thyear as publisher.
'Their loyalty and dedication to their profession has made theNEWS a terrific paper for our readers and advertisers.' Warren'smother, Joanne Jordan Van Namee, is the NEWS' chairman of the board,and his father still holds a position on the board of directors, asdoes his sister, Carolyn Mowers. Former general manager ArthurMcKenzie also has served as a board member. All remain avid readersof a paper that has garnered awards for news and sports reporting,photography and sparkling color layouts made possible by a processcalled flexography.
The paper publishes The Weekly each Thursday for readers inGreater Bangor. The Bangor Daily News is owned by Bangor PublishingCo., which also owns Northeast Publishing in Presque Isle, publisherof several weekly newspapers.
Since 1989, the NEWS has been published at a modern productionfacility on Route 202 in Hampden, but its editorial, advertising andbusiness offices remain at 491 Main St., the paper's home since 1955.Before that, it was based on Exchange Street, a location thatprovided many opportunities along with a host of challenges.
Nestled amidst the Bijou Theater, Penobscot Exchange Hotel, UnionStation and Atlantic Sea Grill, not to mention the Silver Dollar bar,the old NEWS headquarters was a favorite place for customers to chewthe fat. Often those chats turned into hot news tips of a localmurder or political feud.
One memorable day, Jan. 28, 1914, a customer who dropped in to buya paper smelled smoke. The fire discovered at 150 Exchange St.threatened the lives of NEWS employees and the paper's immediateexistence.
Fortunately, the publisher of the rival paper across town, theBangor Daily Commercial, allowed the use of his facilities and thepaper never missed a day of publication.
Neither did it lose a day on April 30, 1911, when the Great BangorFire shut down gas and water supplies, two elements essential torunning the paper's Linotype machines. A sharp-eyed compositordiscovered boxes of old type and cobbled together the paper's May 1edition.
Only once did nature stop the presses. That happened after the NewYear's Eve blizzard of 1962, when snowdrifts on Buck Street preventeddelivery trucks from leaving the plant.
Executive Editor Mark Woodward met nature's challenges in 1998,when an ice storm shut down power at the Main Street offices andHampden plant. Working with publisher Warren, Woodward oversaw alimitedrun printing of 12,000 copies, nothing short of miraculousconsidering the handicap.
Technology has helped improve the NEWS in the past decade. Whereonce the paper was assembled with hot lead type and later 'pasted up'on paper, the NEWS now is assembled electronically through a processcalled pagination. Many readers call up the paper's Web site,www.bangornews.com, on a daily basis.
The Warren family and Robert Stairs, vice president/ treasurer,however, realize that without good people, technology is meaningless.
'It takes quality people to make a good newspaper,' Stairs saidlast week. 'People matter to this family - it is important thatemployees feel comfortable coming to work.' Stairs emphasized thepaper's niche in the community and throughout the state.
Woodward said readers frequently refer to the NEWS as 'theirpaper' or 'our paper,' a reflection of the staff 's efforts over theyears to be a responsible part of the community - a strong and loyalvoice that expects to be around for generations to come.
