Marion County Record
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Hoch Publishing |
| Publisher | Eric Meyer |
| Editor | David Colburn (news editor) |
| Founded | 1869 |
| Headquarters | 117 South 3rd Street Marion, Kansas 66861 United States |
| Website | MarionRecord.com |
The Marion County Record is a weekly newspaper published in Marion, Kansas, and serves as the official newspaper of City of Marion and Marion County. The paper publishes every Wednesday.
The newspaper's first issue came off the press on September 24, 1869, just six months after Ulysses S. Grant had replaced Andrew Johnson as president and only eight years after Kansas had become a state. Founding editor and publisher A.W. Robinson called the paper The Western News, and it was initially printed 57 miles away in Detroit, in adjoining Dickinson County.
The paper moved to Marion Centre in 1870 because of a community effort by J.N. Rogers, J.H. Costello, A.E. Case, Levi Billings, William H. Billings and A.A. Moore, who offered Robinson cash to relocate. Robinson's first editorial effort was to encourage better sidewalks on Main Street. He remained publisher for 19 months.
John E. Murphy purchased the paper and renamed it The Western Giant. He sold it five months later to C.S. Triplett, who in 1871 changed the name to Marion County Record. After three years, Triplett sold the paper in 1874 to Edward W. Hoch, who had learned the printing trade at the short-lived Florence Pioneer, located in Florence, before moving to Marion.
Since 1874, two families have been involved with the Record. The Hoch family owned it for 124 years. The Meyer family has been involved for more than 60 years.
E.W. Hoch ran the newspaper until his death in 1925. Son Wallis Hoch and grandson Wharton Hoch also served as editors. E.W. Hoch and another of his sons, Homer Hoch, were active in politics. E.W., a legislator from 1889 to 1891 and from 1893 to 1895, served two terms as Kansas governor from 1905 to 1909. A lawyer by training, Homer served as a member of Congress from 1919 to 1933 and as a justice on the Kansas Supreme Court from 1938 until his death in 1949.
During the Hoch family's tenure, several other newspapers were folded into the Record — or simply folded. Eighteen separate newspapers were published in Marion, each for fewer than two years, between 1880 and 1895. The Marion Times, founded in 1890 by C.E. Foote and Henry Kuhn, became the Marion Headlight in 1899 when J.J. Buschlen purchased it. Buschlen sold the paper to the Record in 1909.
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