Industry | Media |
---|---|
Founded | 1927 |
Defunct | 1967 |
Fate | Acquired by Thomson Newspapers |
Brush-Moore Newspapers, Inc. was a United States newspaper group based in Ohio which had its origins in 1923 and was sold to Thomson Newspapers in 1967 for $72 million, the largest ever newspaper transaction at that time.[1][2]
In 1923, Louis Herbert Brush, who had joined the Salem News (of Salem, Ohio) as a manager in 1894 and purchased it in 1897,[3] entered into a partnership with Roy Donald Moore and William Henry Vodrey, Jr. to purchase The Marion Star from then-U.S. President Warren G. Harding.[4][5] By 1924, Time magazine already noted the group as one of the prominent newspaper groups in the country, with four papers and a total circulation of 30,906.[6] In 1927, the "Brush-Moore" chain was created from their holdings.[3]
Joseph K. Vodrey, son of W.H. Vodrey Jr., became general manager of Brush-Moore Newspapers, Inc. in 1946. Vodrey was Vice-President and a member of the Brush-Moore board of directors from 1951 to 1968, when he retired. He also served as Vice-President and as a Director of the Beaverkettle Company.
At the time of the 1967 sale, Brush-Moore owned 12 daily papers, including six in Ohio (the Canton Repository, East Liverpool Review, Salem News, Steubenville Herald, Marion Star, and Portsmouth Times) three in California (Times-Standard, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, and Oxnard Press-Courier), and one in Maryland (Salisbury Daily Times), Pennsylvania (Hanover Evening Sun), and West Virginia (Weirton Daily Times), with a total circulation of approximately 540,000.[1][7]