The paper was founded in June 1871 by a group of 10 printers with 900 in
financial capital. The paper published its first issue as
The Daily Dispatch on July 1, 1871, as a four-page paper which cost 4¢ (¢ in ) per copy. The paper was originally an afternoon paper for the city of
Columbus, Ohio, which at the time had a population of 32,000. For its first few years, the paper rented a headquarters on North High Street and Lynn Alley in Columbus. It began with 800 subscribers. On April 2, 1888, the paper published its first full-page advertisement, for the Columbus Buggy Company. In 1895, the paper moved its headquarters to the northeast corner of Gay and High streets, a larger building on a site which was previously a grocer. On April 10, the paper published a 72-page edition to mark the move. On December 17, 1899, the paper published its first Sunday edition, a 36-page paper which cost 3¢ (¢ in ), and the daily editions were reduced in price to 2¢ (¢ in ). Two years later on March 3, 1901, the paper published its first color
comic strips. The paper's editorial staff traditionally has had a
conservative slant. Until it endorsed
Hillary Clinton over
Donald Trump, the paper's last
endorsement of a
Democrat as a
Presidential candidate had been for the re-election of
Woodrow Wilson in 1916. The
Dispatch endorsed
Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Ted Strickland in the 2006 Ohio elections, but endorsed
John Kasich, the Republican candidate running against his reelection, in 2010. In a sale announced on June 3, 2015, ownership of the
Dispatch was transferred to the
GateHouse Media subsidiary of New Media Investment Group. With New Media's 2019 acquisition of
Gannett, GateHouse Media was rebranded as Gannett, which would close the Dispatch's printing facility by this time, and outsourced production to a facility in Indianapolis. The
Dispatch Broadcast Group, comprising
WBNS-AM-
FM-
TV in Columbus and
NBC affiliate WTHR (channel 13) in
Indianapolis, remained in the hands of the Wolfe family until 2019, when it was sold to
Tegna, Inc., which promptly absorbed the firm. In March 2022,
The Columbus Dispatch moved to a six day printing schedule, eliminating its printed Saturday edition. In November 2025, The Columbus Dispatch's parent company Gannett rebranded as USA Today Co., Inc.. As of February 2026, The Columbus Dispatch is printed in Canton, Ohio. == See also ==