Origins In 1870,
The Vidette was the first newspaper established in Wichita by Fred A. Sowers and W. B. Hutchinson. It operated briefly. On April 12, 1872,
The Wichita Eagle was founded and edited by Marshall M. Murdock, and it became a daily paper in May 1884. In October 1872,
The Wichita Daily Beacon was founded by Fred A. Sowers and David Millison. In 1926, the Levand brothers, Max, Leonard, John and Louis purchased the Wichita Beacon from Senator Henry Allen. The Levand brothers had grown up in Denver selling the Denver Post on the street-corners of Denver. Max Levand remained editor, publisher until his death in March 1960.
Mergers The
Eagle and
Beacon competed for 88 years, then in 1960 the
Eagle purchased the
Beacon. Both newspapers continued to be published, the
Eagle in the morning, the
Beacon in the evening, the
Eagle and Beacon on Sunday. In fall 2016, Cargill announced that it would move its "Protein Group" headquarters from downtown Wichita into a new $60 Million building on the site of the former
Eagle building at 825 East Douglas Avenue in Old Town. In January 2017, the paper announced it had signed a deal for office space in the Old Town area of downtown Wichita. It plans to move newsroom and advertising employees to 330 North Mead (from 825 East Douglas) in the spring of 2017. The new site is located southeast of the Warren Old Town Theater. Effective October 23, 2023, the paper's daily print edition will be delivered via the U.S. Mail instead of delivery by a local carrier. In April 2024, The
Eagle announced it was moving to the
Epic Center in downtown Wichita at 301 N. Main St. The new site is one block from The ''Eagle's'' first home in 1872, in a wood building at Third and Main streets. In September 2024, the
Eagle moved to a three day printing schedule, printing a Wednesday, Friday and Sunday edition. ==See also==