A brief history of the Ogden Standard-Examiner

                       The current Ogden Standard-Examiner building.

By Lynn Arave

THE Ogden Standard-Examiner is Utah’s third-largest daily newspaper and the biggest north of Salt Lake City. It serves more than 60,000 print subscribers readers in the “Top of Utah” -- Weber, Davis, Morgan and Box Elder counties --  as well as many more on the Web.

The Standard officially began on Jan. 1, 1888, though its forerunner, the Ogden Daily Herald, had started seven years earlier in 1881.

Founded by Frank J. Cannon, a former Deseret News and San Francisco Chronicle reporter, the Standard, originally an evening paper, opened in the Peery Building, at 23^rd Street and Washington Avenue.

Cannon vowed that the new newspaper would “endeavor to … merit the confidence and esteem of good and true men.”

He had been unable to salvage the Herald and so he purchased its presses, buildings, subscription lists and ad contracts to provide a successor with the Standard.

By 1892, the newspaper had a circulation of 1,500 copies.

A key change came along in1893, when William Glasmann, 37, took charge of the Standard after Cannon was elected a territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress.(Glasmann would later be elected as the mayor of Ogden City in 1901.)

A year later, in 1894, Glasmann purchased the Standard with proceeds from the sale of his ranch at Lake Point, west of Salt Lake. (A family ownership would prevail for almost a century.)

By 1904, Frank Francis, Standard Associate Editor, began publishing the Ogden Morning Examiner, using the Standard’s presses. He sold that paper to Glasmann four month later, who kept publishing both newspapers until 1911.

In 1911, J.U. Eldredge of Salt Lake purchased the Morning Examiner and it became a competitor of the Standard.

Standard Publisher William Glasmann died at age 57 in 1916. His widow, Evelyn, took over and son, Abe, 23, became editor.

The Standard reacquired the Examiner and merges the two papers to become the Ogden Standard-Examiner in 1920.The composite paper was jointly owned by the Glasmann and Eldredge families through the Standard Corporation.

In 1934, the Standard Corporation entered the broadcast market by acquiring KLO Radio, AM-1430 (which it operated it until 1970). The Standard Corporation also started Salt Lake’s KALL, AM-910, radio in 1945.

The Glasmann family bought out the Eldredge interest in the Standard Corporation in 1946.

The Standard Corporation diversifies further by purchasing controlling interest of KUTV, Ch. 2, TV of Salt Lake, in 1956.

The Standard’s daily circulation exceeded 30,000 by 1959.

In 1961, the Standard purchased the old National Guard Building at 455 23^rd Street for its new offices, where it would remain for almost 40 years. (The newspaper has moved locations six times over the decades.)

The Standard purchased a new press, capable of printing 70,000 48-page papers per hour, in 1969. This move helped the Standard eventually become a local publishing company for other products.

Randall C. Hatch, great-grandson of the original Standard Publisher, William Glasmann, became managing editor, in 1981, keeping a family tradition going.

By the early 1990s, daily circulation of the Standard reached 55,500, when almost 85 percent of the homes in Weber County were loyal subscribers.

The Standard became a subsidiary of Sandusky Newspapers, an Ohio media company, in 1993. The Hatch family, descendants of William Glasmann, also sold its majority interests in KALL radio and KUTV.

The Standard offices moved again in 2000, this time to the Business Depot Ogden, formerly the Defense Depot. The newspaper also switched to morning publication after almost a 110-year-run as an afternoon newspaper, as nationally and locally, readers preferred a morning product.

Today, the Ogden Standard-Examiner has more than 63,000 subscribers in the “Top of  Utah.”

The newspaper is also now much more than a printed product. It offers a 24-hour news source, with updated information on-line. It also features photo galleries, video options of news events and other updates.

In addition, the Standard also offers a career and events page on Standard.net

-The Standard-Examiner, 332 Standard Way, offers free public tours, for groups, large or small, or for classes.

To arrange a tour, contact Summer Green at 801-625-4557, or at sgreen@standard.net

(SOURCES: Ogden Standard-Examiner, “Chronicle of a Century” edition, Jan. 1, 1988; and Utah History Encyclopedia.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net