Key West Citizen
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Publisher | Cooke Communications |
| Editor | Kay Harris (Managing Editor) |
| Political alignment | "Independent Democratic" |
| Language | English |
| Circulation | 10940 paid (morning), 11470 paid (Sunday) |
| OCLC number | 2701762 |
| Website | http://www.keysnews.com |
The Key West Citizen is a daily newspaper published in Key West, Florida, USA. The newspaper is the result of the amalgamations of several related publications in the early years of the 20th century, becoming the Key West Citizen on April 29, 1905, when the first weekly edition rolled off the presses at 534 Front St. announcing the coming of Flagler's Overseas Railroad to Key West.
The common thread running through the various incarnations dating back 128 years is Walter Willard Thompson, who gained prominence as the editor of the historic weekly Key of the Gulf.
Born in Key West in 1875, Thompson began his newspaper career as a carrier at age 12, becoming the editor of the third incarnation of the Key of the Gulf shortly before the turn of the century.
This paper was Democratic in its political leanings, but vowed in its editorial pages not to "take up personal differences between the members of different parties, or to shoulder the political fights of any man or men, when they are made for personal reasons". The paper's ultimate aim, was "the advancement of the interests of Key West and Monroe County". A few years later, local newspaperman T.J. Appleyard bought the Key West Herald, a weekly organized by a number of citizens five years previously, and then swallowed Thompson's Key to the Gulf, around 1900. He combined those two papers into the Inter-Ocean, described during its five-year run as a "high-class fearless daily".
Late in 1900, it was Thompson's turn to take over the Inter-Ocean, which he continued publishing until its eventual demise in 1906.
In 1904, a small paper called The Citizen appeared as a weekly, but only lasted for a few months before being bought by Walter Thompson's cousin, Thomas Treason Thompson, and his business partner, Macy B. Darnall. The pair changed the name to the Key West Citizen and continued to operate it as a weekly newspaper.
By 1906, both camps decided they should consolidate all their newspaper holdings and, on November 1 of that year, a new paper, the six-day-per-week afternoon edition Key West Citizen was formed through the amalgamation of the weekly Citizen and the Inter-Ocean. Each founding publisher was allotted a one-third interest in the new company, Citizen Publishing.
This arrangement continued until 1912, the year the railroad finally arrived in Key West. By then, Walter Thompson had decided to leave newspapers entirely and the three sold the Key West Citizen, now located in its Front Street offices, to the famed Artman family patriarch L.P. Artman Sr. for $100,000, changing the focus and journalistic style almost immediately.
"In the old days, there would be more national news, because everybody would know the local news before it got to press," said Florida Keys historian Tom Hambright. "But as the Artman era started, he believed that if you mentioned lots of local names you'd sell papers. So you had all the babies and everything."
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