BANGOR DAILY NEWS YESTERDAY AND TODAY

Readers sat at their breakfast tables last week, coffee cups in hand, and pored over printed reports concerning carnage in Iraq, where to build Bangor’s new police station, and the passing of Ronald Reagan and Ray Charles.

One hundred fifteen years before, things weren’t so different at the Bangor Daily News. The paper’s June 18, 1889, edition trumpeted a similar blend of local and world news. In the year when Benjamin Harrison was president, locally, Seventh-day Adventists were meeting in Carmel, and, elsewhere, Kansas and West Virginia were ravaged by flooding.

But in one respect things were quite different that day in 1889: Readers accustomed to broadsheets stuffed with advertising and little news soon noticed this black-andwhite upstart. The very first edition of the Bangor Daily News rewrote local history by dishing up something brash and wonderful: news, news and more news.

On its first anniversary in 1890, the paper, with more than a little hubris, reported, “The News elected Mayor Blake; … and it brought about cleaner streets; … it reorganized the police force; it made the Fourth of July celebration last year a success; and it always has and always will encourage every enterprise that can be got to locate in Bangor and increase our local industries.” Thomas J. Stewart, a shipping magnate and failed congressional candidate, died a year after founding the paper, a virtual twin of the flamboyant New York Herald.

Stewart’s novice sons took control, cutting expenses and the paper’s “fire-alarm” headlines in a fight for its life. Spiraling newsprint 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 almost certain death. Backed by other investors, Towle bought the paper in 1895 and set about boosting circulation and the newspaper’s reputation.

“I think he realized that with the advent of the trolleys and [later] automobiles, the grain business’s days were numbered,” said current NEWS publisher Richard J. Warren, Towle’s great-grandson, in a 1989 centennial history of the paper.

Warren, known as “Rick” to the paper’s more than 300 employees, is the NEWS’ fourth-generation publisher and the fifth member of his family to hold that title.

Like his publisher predecessors – his father, Richard K.

Warren, grandparents Fred and Lillis Jordan, and greatgrandfather Towle – Warren shuns the limelight, crediting the paper’s success to the people who have made it a respected newspaper of record.

“I am tremendously proud of the people I work with and have worked with over the past 20 years,” Warren said in a recent statement, noting that the paper’s 115th anniversary coincides with his 20th year as publisher.

“Their loyalty and dedication to their profession has made the NEWS a terrific paper for our readers and advertisers.” Warren’s mother, Joanne Jordan Van Namee, is the NEWS’ chairman of the board, and his father still holds a position on the board of directors, as does his sister, Carolyn Mowers. Former general manager Arthur McKenzie also has served as a board member. All remain avid readers of a paper that has garnered awards for news and sports reporting, photography and sparkling color layouts made possible by a process called flexography.

The paper publishes The Weekly each Thursday for readers in Greater Bangor. The Bangor Daily News is owned by Bangor Publishing Co., which also owns Northeast Publishing in Presque Isle, publisher of several weekly newspapers.

Since 1989, the NEWS has been published at a modern production facility on Route 202 in Hampden, but its editorial, advertising and business offices remain at 491 Main St., the paper’s home since 1955. Before that, it was based on Exchange Street, a location that provided many opportunities along with a host of challenges.

Nestled amidst the Bijou Theater, Penobscot Exchange Hotel, Union Station and Atlantic Sea Grill, not to mention the Silver Dollar bar, the old NEWS headquarters was a favorite place for customers to chew the fat. Often those chats turned into hot news tips of a local murder or political feud.

One memorable day, Jan. 28, 1914, a customer who dropped in to buy a paper smelled smoke. The fire discovered at 150 Exchange St. threatened the lives of NEWS employees and the paper’s immediate existence.

Fortunately, the publisher of the rival paper across town, the Bangor Daily Commercial, allowed the use of his facilities and the paper never missed a day of publication.

Neither did it lose a day on April 30, 1911, when the Great Bangor Fire shut down gas and water supplies, two elements essential to running the paper’s Linotype machines. A sharp-eyed compositor discovered boxes of old type and cobbled together the paper’s May 1 edition.

Only once did nature stop the presses. That happened after the New Year’s Eve blizzard of 1962, when snowdrifts on Buck Street prevented delivery 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 and Hampden plant. Working with publisher Warren, Woodward oversaw a limitedrun printing of 12,000 copies, nothing short of miraculous considering the handicap.

Technology has helped improve the NEWS in the past decade. Where once the paper was assembled with hot lead type and later “pasted up” on paper, the NEWS now is assembled electronically through a process called 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 said last week. “People matter to this family – it is important that employees feel comfortable coming to work.” Stairs emphasized the paper’s niche in the community and throughout the state.

Woodward said readers frequently refer to the NEWS as “their paper” or “our paper,” a reflection of the staff ‘s efforts over the years to be a responsible part of the community – a strong and loyal voice that expects to be around for generations to come.