Kennebec Journal

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Kennebec Journal
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet

Owner Blethen Maine Newspapers
Publisher John Christie
Editor Eric Conrad
Founded January 1825
Headquarters 274 Western Avenue, Augusta, Maine 04330
Flag of the United States United States
Circulation 14,845 in 2004[1]

Website: kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com

The Kennebec Journal is a seven-day morning daily newspaper published in Augusta, Maine, USA. Since 1998, it has been owned by Blethen Maine Newspapers, a subsidiary of The Seattle Times Company.

[edit] History

Founded in 1825 by Russell Eaton and Luther Severance, the Kennebec Journal is the oldest newspaper in the state of Maine. Although the newspaper is based in Augusta, Eaton and Severance foresaw a wider circulation and gave it a regional name.[2]

James G. Blaine was publisher of the Journal from 1854 to 1857. He later served as one of Maine's U.S. Senators and, in 1888, became the only Mainer ever nominated for U.S. president by a major party.[2]

In 1929, the paper was purchased by Guy Gannett, a Maine publisher who already owned the Portland Press Herald and Waterville Sentinel. [3]

Gannett and his heirs -- no relation to the Virginia-based chain called Gannett Company -- held the three Maine dailies until 1998, when they sold them to The Seattle Times Company, which rechristened the chain "Blethen Maine Newspapers." Frank Blethen, a descendant of Seattle Times founder Albert Blethen, a Maine native, later called the purchase "the largest and riskiest investment in our history" but a necessary move to keep the newspapers from becoming part of a corporate chain.[4]

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