Sep 30, 2018 2 min read

For 116 years, three months and six days, the Northrop family has owned Observer Publishing Co., publisher of the Observer-Reporter daily newspaper, the weekly Almanac and other niche publications that are circulated in the area.

Today is their grand finale. Publisher Tom Northrop has sold the company to Ogden Newspapers, a Wheeling, W.Va.-based firm — owned by the Nutting family — that will assume ownership Monday.

Five generations of Northrops have devoted large quantities of blood, sweat, tears and ink to their operation, and it is still standing — a remarkable feat in this digital age. The family newspaper, once an American staple, has gone the way of the brontosaurus.

Here is a rough timeline of the company’s history, which dates to 2002:

**July 24, 1902: John L. Stewart, Tom Northrop’s great-grandfather, partners with E.F. Acheson to form OPC, which would publish the Washington Observer, a morning paper founded in 1871, and the Washington Reporter, an afternoon paper founded in 1808;

**1912: Acheson retires; Stewart becomes controlling owner and president, and runs OPC until his death in 1940;

**1940: Margaretta D. Stewart, Stewart’s widow, assumes company ownership;

**1966: Margaretta Stewart dies and brothers John L.S. and William B. Northrop become co-owners;

**1967: The Observer and Reporter combine to form one paper, the Observer-Reporter;

**1986: Sunday edition of the newspaper debuts;

**2000: John Northrop’s son, Tom, and William Northrop’s son, William Jr., are named co-publishers;

**June 2002: John and William Northrop Sr. retire; eight Northrop children become the fourth generation of their family to own OPC; Tom is named president, William Jr. vice president;

**January 2004: Tom Northrop becomes sole publisher;

**Oct. 1, 2018: Ogden Newspapers’ purchase of OPC takes effect.