The Gleaner has a distinguished history as a community newspaper, and is the only daily of that name in the United States.
Its genealogy includes two main branches, which after they joined resulted in the paper being called The Gleaner-Journal between 1954 and 1973.
The Journal was incorporated Sept. 14, 1883, and its first edition hit the streets Dec. 10. The Gleaner, meanwhile, was founded in Providence by C.C. Givens in May of 1883, but made a stop in Madisonville for two years before making its Henderson debut in July 1885.
Both were weeklies at the time, and initially underwent a series of owners. The Journal, which was founded by the Henderson Publishing Co. with Col. E.L. Starling as editor, became a daily April 9, 1889, a year after The Gleaner. The Gleaner was initially an evening paper, while the Journal was a morning edition, but those roles were reversed when Leigh Harris acquired both papers.
Harris had been working in Peoria, Illinois, but resigned after punching his boss in the jaw. He was equally as blunt in his one-sentence editorial in the Journal in February 1909: “I have come to Henderson to run a newspaper.”
Harris bought The Gleaner on Aug. 12, 1914 but published it and the Journal as separate newspapers.
For four decades Harris helped steer Henderson where he thought it ought to go, bringing Henderson County its first farm agent, advocating for better roads, more parks, and various other worthwhile causes.
His daughter, Francele Armstrong, took the paper’s helm in 1950 when age began to take its toll on him.
The Gleaner and the Journal merged into one morning edition Jan. 19, 1954, to form the newspaper as it currently exists, although the name Gleaner-Journal was retained until April 28, 1973, when it once again reclaimed its original name of The Gleaner.
The Gleaner has launched three different photojournalists who later went on to win the Pulitzer Prize multiple times: Keith Williams (twice), William Snyder (four times) and Scott Applewhite (twice).
Under the leadership of Editor Ron Jenkins, who retired in 2006 after spending most of the previous 50 years as The Gleaner’s editor, the paper won the Kentucky Press Association’s General Excellence Award for 10,001 to 25,000 circulation 22 times out of a 25-year period.
Former Gleaner publisher and owner Walter Dear II (1999), retired editor Ron Jenkins (2007), reporter/columnist Judy Jenkins (posthumous, 2015) retired Business section editor Chuck Stinnett (2016) and retired Features section editor Donna Stinnett (2016) have been selected for the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame at the University of Kentucky's School of Journalism and Telecommunications.
Individual Gleaner staff members have also won numerous awards, both for journalism and for service to the community.
The Gleaner was owned for more than four decades by the family of Walt Dear, which leased the paper in 1955 and bought it in 1957.
The Dear family announced Feb. 11, 1997, that The Gleaner and affiliated companies would be sold to A.H. Belo Corp. The sale closed six weeks later. Three years later, in late 2000, Belo sold The Gleaner, Audubon Printers and the Union County Advocate to the E.W. Scripps Co.
Scripps already owned the Evansville Courier & Press by that point, and The Gleaner became a division of the Evansville Courier Company.
On April 1, 2015, Journal Media Group became the parent owner of the Evansville Courier & Press, which was the result of a merger between the Scripps newspaper division and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
On April 1, 2016, Gannett purchased the Journal Media Group and The Gleaner, as well as the Evansville Courier & Press, became a part of the USA TODAY Network.
