The Mercury News history

In 1853, Francis B. Murdoch bought out partner John C. Emerson to take over the Santa Clara Register; he renamed it the San Jose Telegraph.

He married Fannie Everitt in 1854, a native of Alabama, and they moved to their homestead on the Coyote River two miles north of San Jose.

Credited as an early orchardist in the Valley, Schallenberger devoted roughly ten acres to orchards by 1858.

James J. Owen, a former printer from New York, bought the San Jose Mercury from William Neal Slocum in 1861.

The San Jose City Item, predecessor to the San Jose News, was started in 1863 by Francis B. Murdoch as a rival paper to the San Jose Mercury.

He sold it to attorney Charles M. Shortridge in 1884.

The San Jose Daily News brought the first linotype machines to San Jose in 1898, replacing hand-set type with machines that pour molten lead into letter molds.

(photo courtesy History San Jose)Photo of the San Jose Electric Tower from 315 Santa Clara Street, circa 1900.

Program and menu for the second annual banquet of employees of Mercury and Herald, held on December 31, 1903, at Lamolle House, San Jose.

By 1911, he moved to California and began constructing homes, civic buildings and farm structures.

By 1928, he had completed the eleven-story Medico-Dental building in San Jose.

In 1932 the brothers established a family corporation, and their sons became co-publishers.

The exhibit “Shirlie Montgomery: Photographing San Jose Since 1938” documents Montgomery’s career, and can be viewed online through the Google Cultural Institute.

After graduating with a degree in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1950, Heid began his career with the prestigious San Jose firm of Binder and Curtis, where he worked on Fire Station 1 in San Jose.

Cartoon sketch of Mercury Herald publisher Elystus Hayes, likely created at the 1951 California Newspaper Publishers Association Convention.

Clogher, a local surveyor and self-styled “Passing Paladin of the Holy Citizens,” had helped the remaining eight elderly PCDW disciples protest Riker’s illegal “sale” of Holy City to an alleged Hollywood producer, Maurice Kline, in 1956.

For four months in 1959, the Mercury and News ceased publication when the unions staged a strike and produced their own newspaper, the San Jose Reporter, until new contracts were negotiated.

The Modernist building was designed in 1965 by Warren B. Heid.

After several locations in downtown San Jose, the paper moved in 1967 to 750 Ridder Park Drive, just off the Nimitz Freeway, where it remained until the paper’s owner sold the property to Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Printing plate for San Jose Mercury front page (1975-06-30) by San Jose Mercury NewsHistory San José

The San Jose Mercury and San Jose News (they would merge in 1983) was an influential advocate of the area’s sudden growth in population, as well as its beneficiary.

His grandson Barry established Barry Swenson Builder around 1984, which still operates today.

When it closed in 1986, the Carl N. Swenson Company was called one of Santa Clara County’s oldest, largest and most powerful construction companies.

Hitt is described in a Mercury News article dated 6/20/2001, as an “old-time city editor,” “shepherding the growing paper through the tumultuous ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s when San Jose was sprouting like an awkward teenager.

Leigh Weimers retired November 11, 2005, as dean of Bay Area newspaper columnists, concluding a 47-year career with the San Jose Mercury News.