This Week in Citizen-Times History (July 1, 2025)
The July 4, 1976 special edition of The Citizen-Times celebrated the bicentennial for the United States, celebrating 200 years of history by sharing some history about the newspaper business in Scottsville.
The story, which was reproduced from an issue of The Times-Messenger, an ancestor to The Citizen-Times, which discussed that there have been several newspapers in Allen County, being attributed as a “newspaper graveyard,” starting with Opie Read founding the Argus in 1876, the centennial for the United States at that point in time.
The edition showcases a series of pictures, showing the progression of The Citizen-Times up to 1976, giving a look at the people who worked at the business, and the equipment that they used at the time.
Those pictured include, in front of the original building in 1915, R.R. Pitchford, the founder of The Citizen, R.E. Garrison, the editor of The Anderson News in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, Tillman Kirby and G.T. Horne, with a young Robert B. Pitchford standing in front of them, being 12-years-old at the time.
The interior shot in 1940 shows Mr. and Mrs. Roy Pitchford Sr., Roy Pitchford Jr, and Robert B. Pitchford, Sr., holding the office dog named “Stumpy.”
Robert B. Pitchford, Sr. is also pictured standing in front of the building in the early 1930s, which had been constructed in 1929, with a gas pump outside to combat the ongoing Great Depression.
On the bottom left of the page, R.B. Pitchford Sr. was shown using a Linotype keyboard in 1929, with the paper being printed on an “ancient Cotell press,” and references that the Citizen-Times was the second oldest business in Allen County at the time, now being the oldest current business in Allen County.
On the bottom right of the page is a picture of the current Citizen-Times building, and talks about the “computerized type-setting, up-to-date photographic department, and offset commercial printing equipment.”
The Citizen-Times, consolidated of The Citizen (1908) and Allen County Times (1890) on Oct. 10, 1918, has proudly served Scottsville and Allen County for 135 years.
