20211015_GYS2021-22_INSIDE_PAGES

GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS | 2021– 2022 75 become the Yellow Springs News — on Oct. 9, 1880. The front page included little news about Yellow Springs, instead containing reports on fashion trends, home education and a remedy for diphtheria, but it had plenty of local advertising, touting “choice family grocer - ies, flour, meat” from Chas. Adams; attorney S. W. Dakin; and Chas. Shaw’s “one price cash store.” Elsewhere within its pages, Anderson introduced this new paper by writing, “It shall be our chief aim to labor earnestly for the advancement of Yellow Springs interests and those of the adjacent communities.” ​When Anderson founded the Review, its office was located at “the Hamilton building, on Dayton Avenue, near J.H. Little’s Grain Elevator and Railroad,” which places it in or near the current A-C Ser- vice building at 116 Dayton St. Anderson didn’t shy away from boosterism, and his first issue said that “it is gener- ally conceded (and it is true) that Yellow Springs has more good-looking young ladies in proportion to the population than any town in this vicin- ity, and no disparagement to other places.” In the Dec. 8, 1882, issue, the Review printed a story carrying the headline, “There are Many People In Our Town Who Would Like To See: Brick placed on our sidewalks. Mud carted off our streets. A new city building erected on Xenia Avenue. The college open next term with 400 new students. Some system to the lighting of the street lamps. Overall, the Review said in an early “house ad,” the paper was “the Best, the Freshest, and the Only all home-printed newspaper in the county.” Changing hands and names Anderson may have founded a paper that is still published today, but he didn’t last long at the Review, only running the paper for a year, followed by a succession of owners over the next three years: Edward Tiffany, John L. Coan, Nathan A.C. Smith, David Croy and Walter Croy. A.E. Humphries took over as publisher from 1884–87, bringing relative stability. Given the frequent turnover in ownership, it must have been enormously difficult to run the small paper. In July 1885, an unsigned note in the Review said: “At present the whereabouts of the editor is unknown, but we have everything so arranged that the paper will go on as usual and come out on time.” It is unknown what happened to the unidentified editor. The Review changed hands at least twice more in the late 1880s, and in 1891, Citizens Printing and Publishing Co., a group formed by local busi- nessmen, acquired the paper, printing it out of the former Black public school at the corner of South High and West South College streets. It was renamed The Weekly Citizen, but one thing didn’t change: the turnover in editors. At one point, the Weekly Citizen’s banner carried the slogan, “To advance the best interests and defend the rights of all citizens.” A few years later, James R. Hale bought the paper, in June 1894; Herb Ellis and Fred Marshall bought out Hale the following September, renaming the paper The Review. Daniel Albright Long, then presi- dent of Antioch College, was brought on to help on the edi- torial side of the paper. Long “wrote our heavy editorials,” Ernest Morgan wrote, quoting Ellis in a 1947 article on News history. By 1898, Ellis was the only one remaining. ‘The Yellow Springs News’ Competition then emerged for the Review. In May 1894, O. C. Wike, of nearby Hus- tead, started publishing The Hustead News, a tiny journal that was printed on six-by- nine-inch paper. He changed the name of the paper to The Yellow Springs News on June 24, 1896. “Not having unlimited means at his disposal, Mr. Wike gathered together a few fonts of old type, an army press and other trinkets and set out to be a printer. He met with success from the start,” the News reported in an article announcing his retire - ment nine years later. For five years, both the Yellow Springs News and The Review covered Yellow Springs. Then in May 1899, Wike bought out Ellis and combined the two opera- tions, keeping the name of the newspaper as The News. Under Wike, The News had a sense of humor. For instance, the paper’s society column was called “The Drama of Life.” And each week the paper forecasted in creative ways the weather at the top of the front page: May 11, 1900, “Guaranteed satisfactory or money cheerfully refunded”; March 8, 1901, “Warming up for spring politics and plowin’ time”; and Dec., 26, 1902, “plenty of winter.” The Antioch Bookplate building on Xenia Avenue, which is now Bonadie’s Glasstudio, was home to the Yellow Springs News until the early 1960s. | PHOTO COURTESY OF ANTIOCHIANA, ANTIOCH COLLEGE Continued on page 78