How The Eagle and Beacon evolved over the decades

The Wichita City Eagle, founded by Col. Marshall Murdock, became a defining voice of the Old West, helping to drive settlers to Kansas and Oklahoma.

Murdock described Wichita as “The Peerless Princess of the Plains” and the “Magical Mascot of the Meridian.”

Here is a look at how The Wichita Eagle and Beacon evolved into one media company and some key dates in that evolution.

1870: F.A. Sowers founds the Wichita Vidette, the city’s first newspaper. It operates briefly.

April 12, 1872: Col. Marshall Murdock publishes the first edition of The Eagle at Third and Main. By August, The Eagle moves to Main and Douglas, where the Hardage Center now stands. It publishes weekly.

Oct. 18, 1872: Sowers and David Millison start The Beacon. It publishes daily for two months, then becomes a weekly.

1881: The Eagle becomes one of the first subscribers to local telephone service and is listed in a directory of 62 phones.

1884: The Eagle and The Beacon start daily publication.

1900: The Eagle starts a women’s fashion department and its first features pages.

1903: Comic strips and cartoon features start in The Eagle.

Jan. 2, 1908: Marshall Murdock dies.

1908: The Eagle building is constructed at the southwest corner of Market and William.

1910: A 10-story Beacon building at 114 S. Main is hailed as one of Wichita’s first skyscrapers.

1915: The first electric flag sign in Kansas is installed above the entrance of The Eagle building. It is 15 feet long and 7 feet high and is operated by an electric motor to give the effect of a flag blowing in the wind.

1927: The Eagle begins receiving wire reports on teletype machines.

1928: Max and Louis Levand buy The Beacon. They promote community journalism and, in 1935, commission a peppy song, “The Wichita Beacon March.”

For the next several decades, The Beacon and The Eagle are locked in a bitter rivalry.

1954: The Wichita Beacon is the first newspaper in a two-story building at 825 E. Douglas. The building was designed by W.I. Fisher, whose only formal training was seven semesters of architecture at Wichita East. He also designed the nation’s first building specifically built for a television station – KAKE, Channel 10.

July 13, 1959: Time magazine refers to Wichita as “the bottom of journalism’s barrel” as the papers try to “outdo each other in sensationalism.”

1960: The Eagle buys the stocks and assets of the Beacon Newspaper Corp. and begins publishing the afternoon Wichita Evening Eagle and Beacon, the morning Wichita Eagle and the Sunday Eagle and Beacon. The building at 825 E. Douglas is remodeled in 1961, and a partial third story is added. Charles McAfee is the architect.

1973: The Murdock family sells The Eagle and Beacon to Ridder Publications.

1974: Ridder merges with Knight Newspapers to form Knight Ridder.

1980: The two Wichita papers merge to become The Wichita Eagle-Beacon.

1984: Time magazine calls The Wichita Eagle-Beacon one of the best midsize newspapers in the country under the leadership of W. Davis “Buzz” Merritt, editor from 1975 to 1997.

Sept. 7, 1989: The Wichita Eagle-Beacon becomes simply The Wichita Eagle.

Nov. 18, 1996: The Eagle launches its first website, Wichita Online, at www.wichitaeagle.com.

Jan. 22, 2000: Wichita Online becomes Kansas.com.

July 2001: Knight Ridder, The Eagle’s parent company, spends $27.6 million for two new presses and related equipment. It was one of the largest investments in downtown in decades, replacing equipment dating back to the 1950s.

June 26, 2006: Editor & Publisher, a print publication trade magazine, lists The Eagle among 10 newspapers “that do it right.”

June 28, 2006: The Eagle publishes its first edition under the ownership of the McClatchy Co. The company reached a $6.5 billion deal in March to buy Knight Ridder and its 32 newspapers, including The Eagle. McClatchy becomes one of the largest newspaper groups in the nation.

May 28, 2016: The press runs for the last time at The Eagle building at 825 E. Douglas. Press operations continue through its sister paper, the Kansas City Star. The news, advertising, finance and human resources staff continue to work in Wichita. Plans begin for selling The Eagle building and finding a new location in downtown Wichita.

June 21, 2016: A contract is drawn up to sell The Eagle building to developers Dave Burk, Dave Wells and Brandon Steven. The developers plan to raze the building and construct a new headquarters for Cargill.

Jan. 3, 2017: The Eagle announces it will move to Old Town Square. The move is scheduled for late April.

This story was originally published March 25, 2017 at 9:59 PM with the headline "How The Eagle and Beacon evolved over the decades."