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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper Merchants News (Fairport Harbor, Ohio) 1932-1935

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About Merchants News (Fairport Harbor, Ohio) 1932-1935

This weekly community newspaper series served Fairport, Ohio (officially renamed Fairport Harbor in 1959), from 1932 to 1960. Initially titled the Merchants News before being renamed the Fairport Beacon in 1935, it was circulated by the Neal Publishing Company, a printing business run by two Fairporters, Neal and Carl Katila. Issues were free until rising costs forced the Katilas to start charging for subscriptions in late 1942. Though the paper was normally published on Fridays, special or holiday editions were sometimes distributed on other days of the week.

Built along the mouth of the Grand River where it empties into Lake Erie, and 30 miles east of Cleveland, Fairport was a maritime industrial town notable for its large immigrant population of Hungarians, Slovaks, and (especially) Finns. Per A History of Fairport Harbor Ohio, produced by the Fairport Harbor Bicentennial Committee, fully half the town’s population was Finnish by 1912, while another quarter was Hungarian or Slovakian. Finnish Americans were therefore heavily represented in the Fairport Beacon series. Its pages brimmed with Finnish organizations and names, including Katila, and articles like “Famed Finnish Editor Will Speak at Kasvi Hall Here,” from September 9, 1949, were commonplace.

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, Fairport was best known for its docks and shipping. In 1912, the chemical manufacturing industry took on a much greater role with the establishment of the Diamond Alkali Company, which produced a range of chemicals including soda ash, caustic soda, chlorine, and bichromate of soda. The chemical plant was a major employer in Fairport and the neighboring Painesville, and the Fairport Beacon of June 7, 1946, noted that 2,500 men and women worked there (the population of Fairport at the time was 4,500). Because of its prominence, the Diamond Alkali Company was frequently discussed in the Fairport Beacon series for a variety of reasons, including recurrent strikes by the Gas, Coke, & Chemical Workers Union No. 12231 in May 1941, June 1946, October 1949, and July 1950.

The Fairport Beacon series was a community newspaper, and the articles it carried discussed almost exclusively local news. As A History of Fairport Harbor Ohio described it, the Merchants News and Fairport Beacon contained “local news, reporting of club activities, church news, food specials, ads, Mardi Gras coverage [an annual philanthropic festival], school news, and a sports section.” A representative example can be found at the top of the May 19, 1950, issue, which carried the headline “Bette Gurley Named ‘Miss Fairport’ At Harding [High School].” Any larger-scale stories were told through a local lens. Coverage of World War II, for instance, was mainly limited to updates on Fairport men in uniform or discussion of Fairporters’ efforts on the home front.

On February 13, 1959, the Fairport Beacon was acquired by the nearby Painesville [Ohio] Telegraph. The next year, the Telegraph absorbed the Beacon entirely, leaving Fairport Harbor without its own newspaper ever since.

Provided By: Ohio History Connection, Columbus, OH

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Merchants News (Fairport Harbor, Ohio) 1932-1935

Dates of Publication

  • 1932-1935

Created / Published

  • Fairport Harbor, Ohio : Neal Print. Co.

Headings

  • -  Fairport Harbor (Ohio)--Newspapers
  • -  Lake County (Ohio)--Newspapers
  • -  United States--Ohio--Lake--Fairport Harbor

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Began in Mar. 1932; ceased in 1935.
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 2, no. 35 (Nov. 30, 1934).
  • -  Fairport beacon (DLC)sn 88078614

Medium

  • v.

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn90068513

OCLC Number

  • 22761056

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Merchants News Fairport Harbor, Ohio -1935. (Fairport Harbor, OH), Jan. 1 1932. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn90068513/.

APA citation style:

(1932, January 1) Merchants News Fairport Harbor, Ohio -1935. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn90068513/.

MLA citation style:

Merchants News Fairport Harbor, Ohio -1935. (Fairport Harbor, OH) 1 Jan. 1932. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn90068513/.