I Remember...The Paper  

by John William Houghton
published in the Culver Citizen ca.1974-1974

When I began this column of anecdotal history in September of `74, I intended to write about how things had been in the "good old days"; I never expected the Citizen to become a thing of the past. But now I have the job of writing the weekly Citizen's obituary.

The Citizen entered the world as the Marmont Herald on an auspicious day -- Friday the 13th, July, 1894. George A. Nearpass founded the paper, having come to Marmont from Bremen.; according to "One Township's Yesterdays," Nearpass was looking for opportunities in Argos when he heard that Marmont might be able to support a newspaper. He took the Nickel Plate Railroad to Hibbard, then walked to Marmont, where he convinced John Osborn, Sam Medbourn, E.B. Vanschoiack and many others to bankroll the venture. They raised the money and he moved his press to an old photograph gallery just across the street from the Citizen's present office. Nearpass helped change the village's name to Culver City in 1895 and sold the Culver Herald to J.H. Koontz on April 27, 1903.

Koontz changed the newspaper's name to the Culver Citizen and sold it less than three years after he bought it to Arthur B. Holt of Kankakee, Ill., on April 1, 1906.

Holt owned the Citizen during Culver 's days of glory, writing wry and homely articles about the growing resort town. Holt sold the paper to two young and aspiring journalists, M.R. Robinson and F.C. Leitnaker on July 1, 1923.

Leitnaker and Robinson worked together for three years. On Armistice Day, 1926, however, Robinson became sole owner.

Robinson owned the Citizen for 23 years, longer than anyone else. During his tenure, the paper became a 16-page tabloid with seven 22-inch columns on the page and won both state and national prizes for reporting and editorials.

In February, 1949, Robinson sold the Citizen to Major (now Colonel) Charles Ma ull, who employed Robert Rust as editor. In May 1950, Rust leased the paper from Ma ull and served as publisher and editor until June 16, 1953 when he conveyed the Citizen to "Chet" Cleveland, a native of Plymouth who had returned to Marshall County.

The Clevelands' Culver Press, Inc., published the paper until it became part of the Indiana Press of Plymouth in 1967. Exactly 41 years to the day after Robinson acquired the paper, it was sold to the Independent-News Co. of Walkerton, whose publisher Robert E. Urbin assumed editorship.

Those were hard days for the Citizen -- it was often only a smeared four-page tabloid. In May 1974, however, the newspaper got a new lese on life when Tom and Bernadette Zoss assumed control. Under their enthusiastic leadership, the Citizen acquired new computerized equipment, an increased circ ulation, new features, including Bob Kyle's "Lake Water" and this column, and a new "clean" image.

In September 1974 the Zosses moved to Bloomington and Nixon Newspapers Inc. acquired the Citizen. The Nixon chain has maintained the high quality of the Zoss's paper until the bitter end.

The Herald/Citizen has been a part of the Culver community for more than half its life; at its best it was a leader in the town's affairs and even at its worst it held us together by providing something for us to complain about. What more could we ask?