Lake City Reporter

The origins of the Lake City Reporter first began with C. A. Finley in 1875 when he initially began the publication as a county weekly.[2] Finley remained with the paper until 1889.[2]

The Lake City Reporter was not a profitable publication until J.M. Dodd purchased it. J.M. Dodd first worked in the newspaper industry in Kentucky. Dodd had a newspaper office in Henderson, Kentucky but was destroyed by Federal forces in the American Civil War and was subsequently imprisoned on Johnson's Island in Lake Erie. After the war Dodd established the first newspaper in Hopkinsville, Kentucky called the Hopkinsville Observer. In 1889 Dodd decided to sell all of his property in Kentucky and moved to Lake City where he purchased the Lake City Reporter. Dodd managed to increase the circulation of the Lake City Reporter up to his death in 1890. His son Herbert Dodd had learned about the newspaper industry from his father and continued to operate the Lake City Reporter making it a popular publication in Columbia County. The photo above shows a crowd waiting for the 1956 election results at the Lake City Reporter. The election results in these times were released through newswire and teletype machines.[3]