Charleston Gazette-Mail history

The origins of the Charleston Daily Mail date to the 1880’s, when a number of daily and weekly publications were vying for position in the city.

The oldest publication in the city was the Evening Call, established in June 1881 by F.R. Swann and George Warren.

The first Charleston publication to use the Mail name was The Evening Mail, which Swann began publishing in 1893.

The Evening Mail became a morning paper in 1894 after Warren sold his interest to John B. Floyd and John W. Jarrett, who changed the name of the newspaper to the Charleston Mail.

The Mail name disappeared briefly from the Charleston scene in 1896 because of a purchase and consolidation.

It reappeared in 1899 when Moses Donnally, the owner of The Charleston Gazette, purchased the Star-Tribune newspaper and renamed it the Charleston Mail.

In 1900, he sold the Gazette, and a year later, he returned the Mail to afternoon publication.

The paper changed hands and names several times until it became The Charleston Gazette in 1907.

In 1909, President William Howard Taft appointed him as the first territorial governor of Alaska.

As such, it appeared consistently until 1910, when it was sold because of financial difficulty.

Clark purchased the paper at auction in 1914, gave it stability and established its identity as an independent conservative newspaper.

On April 4, 1920, the Charleston Mail inaugurated a Sunday edition, and became the Charleston Daily Mail.

W.E. Chilton Jr., son of the senator, became president of The Daily Gazette Company in 1922, and later served as managing editor and publisher.

After Chilton’s death in 1950, Smith was made publisher.

Charleston Daily Mail for April 8, 1951

Clay joined the newspaper in 1956.

Photo taken in 1959 as a new wing is being constructed at the newspaper building at 1001 Virginia St E.

Expanded several times, it has been the home of both Charleston newspapers since 1960.

In 1961, the Daily Mail entered into a joint operating agreement with The

1, 1970, Clay tapped John F. McGee, a former executive with Knight

In 1987, the Clay family sold the newspaper to Thomson Newspapers.

West Virginia GenWeb Project Volunteer-driven project that began in 1996.

1, 1997, Sam Hindman, a Thomson executive who served as Daily Mail

Hindman continued to lead the paper after Thomson sold it on July 9, 1998, to MediaNews Group Inc.

In May 2004, the Daily Gazette Co., which publishes The Charleston Gazette, bought the controlling interest in the joint operating agreement from MediaNews Group.

In June 2015, Ned Chilton’s daughter, Susan Chilton Shumate, was named publisher — the fourth generation of the Chilton family to hold the position.

On April 10, 2017, Gazette-Mail reporter Eric Eyre won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for his coverage of the opioid crisis in West Virginia.