ESCANABA — The Daily Press received the Century Award at the Chamber’s Annual Dinner in October recognizing its contributions to the community for over 100 years. Over the past few months, we have recognized all the award winners. Today the last, but certainly not the least, Century Award recipient to be recognized is the Daily Press. The newspaper was one of the founding members of the Delta County Chamber of Commerce and has stood by our side ever since.

I’m sure they don’t even realize how they contributed to the success of the Chamber’s annual event. While planning the Annual Dinner, our goal was to celebrate the milestones of the strongest link in our Chamber chain, our members. We scanned 100 years of newspapers in the Daily Press archives to find articles to memorialize the events and activities of the members of the Delta County Chamber of Commerce.

Now, it’s time to shine a light on the Daily Press and remember their century milestones.

The Daily Press was first known as the Escanaba Morning Press. Volume 1, Number 1 was printed on the morning of March 19, 1909, when John P. Norton was the editor and publisher. The subscription rate, at that time, for papers delivered by a carrier was $7 per year or $5 per year if the daily delivery was by mail and paid in advance.

In 1946, the Daily Press was only one of two U.P. papers at the Library of Congress and switched from a morning to an afternoon paper in 1947.

When Daily Press founder, John P. Norton, died in 1950, he willed his entire estate valued at more than $600,000 to the Escanaba School District to establish the Anna C. Norton Scholarship fund.

Publication of the press continued through a two-month strike that began in 1958. The strike was the only one in the paper’s history.

Panax Corporation purchased the Escanaba Daily Press in 1966. The purchase also included the Marquette Mining Journal and Iron Mountain Daily news.

Over a three-year period, lithotype machines were replaced by electronic equipment and a new printing press was installed and housed in Powers. The offset printing process that started in 1974 was completed in 1977.

Several milestones were reported by the Daily Press during the 1980s. The Daily Press was purchased by Thomson Newspaper Publishing, computer terminals replaced typewriters in the news and classified advertising departments, telephone lines were replaced by a satellite dish as a method of receiving wire service news, the press returned to the Associated Press wire service after a five-year association with United Press International, and the Daily Press celebrated its 75th birthday in 1984.

While researching info in the Daily Press archives, we came across many familiar names of friends and neighbors who worked for the newspaper. The chief executives or publishers of the press since 1964 were Ralph Kaziateck, Edward McCarthy, Robert Greg, Jim Eykyn, Tari Calouette, Michael Scott, Richard Crofton, Dan McDonald, and now Corky DeRoeck. Then, there are the editors who are responsible for overseeing the work of all the newspaper staff. The list of editors since 1955 includes Jean Worth, Dave Andrews, Dave Rood, Peggy Bryson (one of few women editors in the State of Michigan in 1982), Rick Rudden, and Brian Rowell.

To our friends and the entire staff (past and present) at the Daily Press, thank you for making and reporting the news that has chronicled the growth and development of our waterfront community for more than a century.

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Vickie Micheau is executive director of the Delta County Chamber of Commerce.