The Star-Bulletin celebrates a milestone birthday
Hawaii's oldest continuously published daily newspaper, turns 125 today
Happy birthday to us! The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Hawaii's oldest continuously published daily newspaper, turns 125 today.
The very first Bulletin was a single page, four columns wide, and was published on Feb. 1, 1882. Within a few weeks, the daily newspaper was already up to four pages, with six columns per page, and we have never looked back.
In 1912 the Evening Bulletin merged with the Hawaiian Star and became the newspaper as we know it today. Wallace Rider Farrington became editor from 1898 and then president and publisher after the 1912 merger. (He also became one of Hawaii's territorial governors.) Son Joseph Rider Farrington became president and publisher until 1954. In 1962, then owned by a hui of local investors, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin entered into a joint operating agreement with the Honolulu Advertiser.
Sold to Gannett in 1971, the Star-Bulletin shared printing, advertising and distribution facilities with the Advertiser. In 1993, Gannett sold the Star-Bulletin to a private firm and bought the competition, the Honolulu Advertiser. Gannett engineered a closure of the Star-Bulletin in 1999, but pressure by citizen groups and federal antitrust lawyers forced a sale of the paper.
Bought by Black Press of Canada, the first edition of the "new" Star-Bulletin appeared on March 15, 2001. Despite fierce economic competition, the newspaper has survived and thrived.
In the hubbub of starting over, the volume and number of the Star-Bulletin were reset to zero. This was rethought, and the numbers were brought back two years ago.
Today's edition begins Vol. 126, No. 1. Adding it up, it seems we have published something like 45,657 editions in the last 125 years. The starbulletin.com Web site is well into its 12th year.
Think of that next time you eye that stack of unread papers next to your easy chair.