History
In June 1901, Walter Curtis Westland acquired the Valley Mirror and the Sentinel, and then merged the two together to form the North Ontario News. [2] [3] The printing plant consisted of a Washington hand press and other man-powered machinery in a house on A Street Upland, but within a year a new building was constructed for it. [4]
Westland came to California from Michigan where he operated the Grand Lodge Independent. He died of consumption on December 1, 1902. [5] [6] [7] His widow Ella L. Westland and their son W.E. Westland then conducted the paper, at some point renamed to the The Upland News. [4] In 1908, W.E. Westland purchased The Highland Messenger. [8] Three years later he bought out his mother from the News in December 1910. [4]
The newspaper office was considerably damaged by water after a fire swept through Upland's downtown district in December 1912. [9] The News increased its publication frequency from weekly to semiweekly starting in December 1919. [10] In January 1928, the News was sold to J.B. Hungerford and his son, John Hungerford, both of Carroll, Iowa. They moved to California to take over management. [4] Under them, the paper reverted back to a weekly. [11]
Richard T. Baldwin, of Albion, Michigan, previously connected with the Albion Evening Recorder, bought the paper in June 1928. [12] Baldwin sold the paper to Vernon Paine and Harry M. Guy in June 1929. Paine was the paper's advertising manager and Guy previously operated the paper for three months. [13] That September, the News was expanded again to a semi-weekly. [14]
Guy retired in September 1939 and sold his interest to Paine, [15] who later increased the rate of publication from twice to three times a week. [16] Paine acquired the Ontario Herald from A.Q. Miller in March 1947. [17] He then merged his two papers to form a daily edition published five times a week called the Daily News-Herald. It was franchise of the Associated Press. A weekly continued to be published under the Ontario Herald masthead. [16] [18]
In October 1948, Paine sold the Upland News-Herald A.E. and Helen C. Dickerson of Compton, and Geraldine C. Preston of Santa Monica. [19] In February 1949, W. Patrick McDonald acquired the paper. [20] Three former employees sued him for unpaid wages, but settled out of court. [21] Around that time the federal government placed four tax liens on McDonald for unpaid taxes. [22] In February 1950, McDonald suspended the News-Herald and relaunched it as a weekly under the old name. [23]
Paine resumed ownership of the Upland News in July 1950. [24] He operated it for another eight years until it was sold to Mel Hodell in October 1958. [25] Two years later Hodell acquired the Montclair Tribune. [26] Hodell established the Cucamonga News in December 1961. [27] He sold his three papers in July 1967 to Bonita Publishing Company, a subsidiary of the Pomona Progress Bulletin. [27] Later that year the company was sold to Donrey Media. [28] In 1974, the Upland News ceased publication, followed by the MontclairTribune in 1977. The CucamongaNews was subsumed by the Highlander, which discontinued publication in the 1990s. [29] The News, Tribune and Highlander were folded into the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. [30]