Editor’s Note: It is a bit surreal for the Examiner to be a focus of an article, when its primary purpose as a business was to focus on the Logan County community it long-served as a print publication and not on itself.
The Examiner will continue to provide digital and social media content on its website www.examiner.org and Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/bellefontaineexaminer for the time being. If you have story ideas, events or topics you feel are not being covered or not being covered well, feel free to send an email to tjhubbard@examiner.org.
We are grateful to Mary Mortimer and the Logan County History Center/Historical Society for their help over the years providing historical background information for more newspaper articles than we can count. Our two organizations share a passion to provide and preserve a living, breathing history of the people and events that shape this communty. The LCHC is a valuable asset and we hope the citizens here will always treat it as such.
A minor correction: A photo cutline attached to the article identifies the late Hamilton C. McPeck as a former editor of the Examiner. Mr. McPeck, who passed away in 1978, served as an ad director and business manager for the newspaper.
By Mary E. Mortimer
The Hubbard family has deep roots in the newspaper publishing business. Thomas A. Hubbard Sr. founded The Weekly Examiner in 1871. His sons, Edwin “E.O” and Horace “H.K.” Hubbard, launched The Daily Examiner on December 14, 1891. The Daily Examiner and the Weekly Examiner were separate from a political standpoint. The Weekly was a Democratic paper, and the Daily was politically Independent. Another son, Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard became famous for his cartoon character, Abe Martin, that was published in newspapers across the country.
The Hubbard brothers began publishing on a Washington hand press in their father’s office on the second floor of the People’s Building at the corner of Main St. and Columbus Ave. The press required users to hand roll two pages of print at a time before changing plates and pressing the back side of the two pages. The first issue of the Daily Examiner was a modest 5-column, 4-page newspaper with a starting circulation of two hundred. In 1893, they moved to a new two-story building at 130-136 E. Court Ave.
Thomas A. Hubbard Sr. died in 1902 and E.O. Hubbard in 1917. After their deaths, the newspaper was then jointly owned by H.K. Hubbard and family members, Josephine, Ada, Kin, and Thomas A. Hubbard Jr. By 1927, the Examiner’s daily subscriptions had increased significantly. The family then invested in a 16-page Duplex tubular plate press.
In 1930, twenty-three-year-old Thomas E. “T.E.” Hubbard, son of Kin and Josephine Hubbard, started working for his aunts and uncles at the family-owned newspaper office. One of his first assignments was covering the opening of the Holland Theatre in 1931. T.E. was also a supporter of the Logan County Fair and covered it well in the Examiner. The fair has been covered extensively every year since T.E. began the tradition.
H.K. Hubbard passed away in 1936. At that time, T.E. Hubbard gained some financial interest in the business. While T.E. was working as sports editor at the Examiner, he was drafted to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II. While he was away, his future wife, Janet, took over his duties as sports editor, making her one of first women sports editors in Ohio. She learned how to cover baseball and record stats from Walter Alston, who at that time was a coach and educator at Washington Township High School. Alston went on to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1954 to 1976.
The two papers were published jointly until 1946 when the Weekly Examiner was suspended. In March 1949, the Daily Examiner name was changed to the Bellefontaine Examiner.
Gene Marine was hired as editor in 1968, and in 1970, T.E. Hubbard gained full ownership of the Bellefontaine Examiner. The Thomas & Marker Construction Company was contracted to build a new 11,500 square-foot office and printing facility at 127 E. Chillicothe Ave. in 1976. The new press room was managed by Everett Culp who trained his staff to operate a high-speed Rockwell offset press. This press was used until October 2000 when printing was moved to Marysville.
The Bellefontaine Examiner published its first Saturday edition in August 1984. This gave their subscribers the results of Friday night sporting events, particularly high school football and basketball, the following morning. A popular Saturday feature was “Good Morning, Good News.”
Computer technology helped the Examiner advance to more efficient ways of gathering news and production capabilities. However, T.E. still typed out stories on his manual typewriter until he passed away in 2001. After his death, his wife Janet and son, Jon, took over management of the newspaper.
In July 2005, the Examiner launched their website, examiner.org, that gave subscribers the ability to read the newspaper online in a PDF format. After the death of Janet Hubbard in 2015, and Jon Hubbard in 2023, Jon and Cathie’s son, Thomas “T.J.” took over operations of the Examiner.
For 135 years, the Bellefontaine Examiner was our source for local and national news. We turned to the newspaper for births, engagements, marriages, obituaries, school news, Sheriff and police reports, editorials, store, and business ads, and much more. For many years, some of the villages provided social media with columns that announced what was going on in their areas.
Reporter Byron Scott was a reporter and photographer for the Examiner for 37 years. His human-interest stories about people and events in Logan County were always interesting to read. The Examiner had a great staff of people over the years that worked hard to get the news out in a timely and professional manner.
For several years, if you posed with a copy of the Examiner while on vacation, you could submit your photo. We laughed at the comics, mused at Abe Martin, enjoyed working the crossword puzzle, and checked the movie and TV listings. Delivering the Examiner was a first job for a lot of kids. The Examiner covered every aspect of what was happening in our area and our lives. It is impossible to list all they accomplished over the years. The History Center Archives has many newspapers from 1830 to 1960, and articles that document our history.
On December 13, 2025, the Bellefontaine Examiner published their last newspaper. We will certainly miss the Examiner that was a major part of our lives for so many years. We thank the Hubbard family for their years of service to our community and wish them all the best in the next chapter of their lives.
Visit the Logan County History Center to learn more interesting aspects of Logan County History. The History Center is open for tours Wednesday – Sunday from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Admission is free.
