Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Snedden Era

Snedden Era

One week before Lathrop's death, he negotiated the sale of the News-Miner to Charles Willis Snedden. Snedden was an efficiency expert and former printer who had been employed by Henry Kaiser during WWII. After the war, he began troubleshooting newspapers. Through 1949 and 1950, Snedden did an efficiency study of the News-Miner and recommended about $100,000 in upgrades. Lathrop was unwilling to spend that much on the newspaper, and Snedded suggested that if Lathrop was unwilling to upgrade, Snedden would be interested in purchasing the paper. The two men worked out a verbal agreement before Lathrop was killed in a coal train accident.

One of Snedden's first actions was to readdress the paper's stance on Alaska statehood. Lathrop and the News-Miner had been strongly opposed to statehood, but after Snedden took control, he analyzed the issue and came out strongly in favor of Alaska statehood. The News-Miner continually published editorials in favor of statehood, and encouraged other newspapers across the U.S. to do the same. In 1955 and 1956, when the Alaska Constitutional Convention took place at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the News-Miner set up special telephone lines from the convention chambers to the newspaper's office. Daily reports were printed, recording the delegates' progress.

The News-Miner strongly supported the political campaign for statehood until 1959, when Alaska became the 49th state of the United States. On the day the U.S. Congress voted to have Alaska admitted as a state, Snedden arranged for a U.S. Air Force jet to fly copies of the News Miner, the Anchorage Times, and other Alaska newspapers to Washington, D.C. On the morning after the vote, each Congressman had an Alaska newspaper proclaiming statehood.

Snedden also embarked on a series of upgrades to the News-Miner's printing equipment. In 1953, rotary printing was introduced to Fairbanks after Snedden purchased a used rotary press from The Sacramento Union. To house the press, Snedden built a two-story building adjacent to the Lathrop Building. The Lathrop Building still contained most of the News-Miner's offices and typesetting equipment, but it was not large enough to contain the new press without extensive renovations, thus requiring a new building. Shortly after the new press was introduced, the News-Miner produced its first full-color newspaper. The new equipment also allowed for larger print jobs, and Snedden introduced an annual Progress Edition that was intended to be distributed outside Alaska in order to attract business and industry to the state. In 1954, the News-Miner obtained a dedicated teletype to the Associated Press, avoiding the need for contracts for telephone and telegraph service to a correspondent in Seattle who would relay AP material to the News-Miner.

On November 23, 1957, tragedy struck when the Lathrop Building caught on fire. Firemen rushed to the scene to put out the blaze and did so quickly, but not before the television and radio studios on the top floors of the building were destroyed. The News-Miner offices and printing facilities on the lower floors were spared from the flames, but suffered water damage. Due to winter temperatures, the water soon froze. Despite the conditions, the paper was produced on time the next day.

In 1964, the largest earthquake ever recorded in the United States struck Anchorage and southern Alaska, cutting communications to the outside world. The quake was felt in Fairbanks, and it took 40 minutes for communications to be re-established with the Associated Press office in Seattle. When the connection was restored, the News-Miner sent the first reports of the earthquake to the outside world. The quake also destroyed the offices of the Anchorage Times, the leading newspaper in that city. The News-Miner offered its press facilities to the Times, and the two papers shared a masthead as Anchorage recovered from the tremor.

Shortly before the earthquake, the News-Miner placed an order for a modern offset printing press. To house the new press, which could not fit in the Lathrop Building, Snedden ordered the construction of a new printing facility and office—named the Aurora Building—north of the Chena River. The Alaska Railroad sold Snedden the land for the building, which was built at a cost of $1 million in 1965. Snedden ordered the foundation for the new building to be raised 22 inches above the 100-year flood line. This fact saved the News-Miner two years later, when a massive flood swept through Fairbanks. The water was three inches deep throughout the paper's offices and even deeper in the press and boiler rooms, which were slightly below that raised level. The flood halted production for a time, and the Anchorage Times reciprocated the post-earthquake favor by publishing the News-Miner's masthead on its editions and posting occasional stories from Fairbanks until electrical power was restored to the town.

In the early 1970s, prior to the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, the Fairbanks economy was unsteady. The News-Miner planned to expand its printing plant, but many in the company were unsure if the economy could support the added capacity. Over the objections of the News-Miner newsroom, Snedden decided to expand the Aurora Building by adding a second floor at a cost of $2 million. In 1974, as construction of the pipeline got under way, demand for office space in Fairbanks was so great that Alyeska Pipeline Company rented several News-Miner offices in the newly expanded building. About this time, the News-Miner replaced its Associated Press teletypes with a satellite connection.