| 1888 | Comfort magazine publishes its first issue. The founder is William Howard Gannett, father of Guy Patterson Gannett.
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| 1921 | Guy Gannett buys the Waterville Morning Sentinel, the Portland Daily Press and the Portland Herald; the two Portland papers are combined and named the Portland Press Herald.
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| 1922 | Work starts on the seven-story Press Herald building at Exchange, Federal and Market streets. A new press in its basement will print 36,000 papers an hour.
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| 1925 | Guy Gannett buys the Evening Express and Daily Advertiser for $550,000 and changes its name to the Evening Express. Included in the deal is the Portland Sunday Telegram, which is combined with the Portland Press Herald Sunday edition.
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| 1927 | Gannett and some partners invest in banks and form a bank holding company called Financial Institutions Inc. A victim of the Depression, the company goes into receivership in 1931.
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| 1929 | Guy Gannett adds the Kennebec Journal to his holdings.
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| 1934 | Comfort magazine ceases publication.
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| 1938 | Guy Gannett expands into radio and starts WGAN, which broadcasts from the Columbia Hotel on Congress Street.
The Portland Evening News folds, eliminating the only remaining competition for Gannett's Portland newspapers.
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| 1935 | Guy Gannett buys a Stinson monoplane to get reporters and photographers to assignments and give them a fresh perspective on the news.
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| 1948 | William Gannett dies at age 94.
The downtown newspaper plant expands to provide 70 percent more space and accommodate WGAN. New, faster presses are installed.
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| 1950 | Guy Gannett's son John leaves the Army and joins the staff of the Kennebec Journal.
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| 1953 | Jean Gannett Williams (later Hawley), Guy Gannett's daughter, joins the newspaper as national advertising manager and is elected executive vice president of Guy Gannett Publishing Co.
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| 1954 | Guy Gannett dies at age 72. Jean Gannett Williams, who is touring Europe as a member of the press, returns home to become president of the company.
The company's first television station, WGAN (later WGME), begins broadcasting. |
| 1966 | The company constructs a new building across Congress Street from the newspapers' headquarters. The new building houses printing operations.
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| 1967 | The Guy Gannett Publishing Co. begins purchasing out-of-state television and radio stations.
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| 1968 | The Portland Sunday Telegram is renamed the Maine Sunday Telegram to reflect a broader statewide circulation.
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| 1976 | The newspapers begin conversion from hot-metal printing to electronically produced type, then to computerized production systems.
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| 1983 | WGAN radio is sold and WGAN-TV is renamed WGME-TV.
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| 1984 | The Gannett Tower Co. is established in Miami. The tower is rented to radio and television stations for broadcasting without interference from tall buildings.
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| 1985-87 | The Gannett Company launches a biweekly, MaineSay, for the retirement-age population.
Minnesota Suburban Newspapers and Post Publications are added to the company.
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| 1988 | The company breaks ground for construction of a $40 million printing plant in South Portland. The plant opens in 1990.
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| 1991 | The Evening Express ceases publication on Feb. 1, because of declining circulation of the afternoon paper.
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| 1993 | Guy Gannett Publishing Co. changes its name to Guy Gannett Communications to, in Jean Gannett Hawley's words "represent ... the broadness of the company." The company owns five papers in Maine, television stations in Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa and Illinois, and has purchased MarCole, a California software company.
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| 1994 | Jean Gannett Hawley dies at age 70. Madeleine Corson (at left), Hawley's niece and a granddaughter of Guy Gannett, becomes chairman of Guy Gannett Communications.
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| 1995 | The Portland Press Herald inaugurates its first site on the World Wide Web. The company's New Media Development Group later establishes a family of related sites under the name MaineToday, and offers commercial Web development services to businesses.
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| 1998 | The company's Maine newspapers are sold to The Seattle Times Co., which is owned by descendants of Alden Blethen, a Maine native who practiced law in Portland before moving west and buying the Seattle paper in 1896. The newspaper division is renamed Blethen Maine Newspapers.
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