The lineage of the
Sun Journal can be traced back to May 20, 1847, when printer William Waldron and future
Governor of Maine, Dr.
Alonzo Garcelon founded Lewiston's first paper, a weekly called the
Lewiston Falls Journal. In 1857, former employee
Nelson Dingley Jr. became owner and publisher, and the paper entered into full-time daily publication in April 1861. It rebranded in 1866 as the
Lewiston Evening Journal. In 1893,
The Lewiston Daily Sun emerged as a competitor and would, under the stewardship of George W. Wood, became the leading morning daily in the region. The two papers maintained a fierce rivalry until Wood purchased the
Journal from the Dingley family on February 1, 1926, moving production from the
Dingley Building to
The Sun's facility at 104 Park Street in Lewiston. By 1945, when Wood died, the
Sun and
Journal were the fourth and fifth most-read dailies in the state with circulations of 27,480 and 14,088, respectively. Wood's heir was
Louis B. Costello, who began as
The Sun's business manager in 1898 and was promoted to general manager and treasurer of the papers' publishing company in 1926. He, in turn, left the papers to his son Russell, who, in 1989, combined the two papers form the
Sun Journal. In 2017, the Sun Media Group was sold by the Costello family to Reade Brower, owner of
MaineToday Media. The
Sun Journal began publishing its Monday paper online-only March 2, 2020, along with three other Maine Dailies owned by MaineToday Media. Starting in April 2025, the paper will be printed five days a week instead of six and will be delivered by mail via U.S. Postal Service instead of newspaper carriers. ==Prices==