Henderson, Boulder City newspapers shared common history

Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009 | 5:44 p.m.

Henderson, Boulder City newspapers to suspend publication

In much the same manner that their communities share a desert heritage, the Henderson Home News and Boulder City News come from a common ancestry.

The Boulder City News, which suspends publication indefinitely this week, was created on April 10, 1940, when Eliza Carter and Jane Cooke gave a new name to the Reminder, an existing Boulder City newspaper. In changing the name to the Boulder City News, Carter and Cooke also expanded it to daily publication.

In 1948, the newspaper was purchased by Morry Zenoff. In 1950, he returned the Boulder City News to a weekly publishing cycle at about the same time he began publishing a special section inside the newspaper focused on the nearby community of Henderson.

The Henderson Home News became a separate weekly publication in 1951. Zenoff continued to publish both papers for roughly three decades.

Later, former Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan, who was executive editor of the Las Vegas Sun, became co-owner of the Henderson Home News and the Boulder City News with Hank Greenspun.

O'Callaghan's son and daughter Tim O'Callaghan and Colleen O'Callaghan-Miele eventually took over for their father as co-publishers and later sold the majority of their interest in the papers to the Greenspun family.

In an era in which many communities depended on local newspapers as a primary source of valued information, the Henderson Home News and the Boulder City News thrived over the years, because they could report on their respective cities in detailed “hometown” ways that larger newspapers could not. In devoting extensive space to their residents’ lives, milestones and community events, local newspapers reigned as primary sources of information in America well into the 1970s, when cable television first began to make strides.

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