Norwalk Reflector

The Norwalk Reflector's first home, then located on West Main Street, now serves as the home of the Firelands Museum, now on Case Avenue.

The Reflector issued its first edition on Feb. 2, 1830.

Owners of the new project were Samuel Preston and George Buckingham. The latter gentleman had been a co-owner of Norwalk's very first newspaper, the Reporter. The Reporter ceased to exist in 1830. The Firelands Historical Society preserves an original file, which has also been microfilmed and is available at the public library.

The first Reflector office was in the second story of a mercantile building at 9 W. Main St. Samuel Preston's daughter, Lucy, married Frederick Wickham in January 1835. Samuel soon bought the lot at 38 W. Main St. (next to the present public library), and in the summer of 1835 began building a building there. This building was completed and occupied in 1836, and since being moved in 1954, houses the museum of the Firelands Historical Society.

It was planned that the Prestons and Wickhams would occupy the first floor and basement, with the newspaper office on the second floor. There are marks in the flooring said to have been made by the Stanbury press used in the earliest time. A year or so into the venture, the editor announced that the paper being used was “homemade” in Norwalk by the Norwalk Manufacturing Company.

Before the first Reflector was ever issued, Preston and Buckingham pondered over an appropriate name. It is a family story that Samuel Preston was in the taproom of Obadiah Jenney's Mansion House hotel (where the Chamber of Commerce is now) and noticed a reflector lamp or candle holder on the wall. It suddenly occurred to him that “Reflector” would be a good name, on the premise that the paper would “reflect” the news.

The newspaper office moved out of the house when both the paper and the growing Wickham family needed more room. Lucy Preston's husband, Frederick Wickham, took over editorship of the paper, and it stayed in the family until a century ago. In 1913 it was purchased by R. C. Snyder, who already owned the Norwalk Evening Herald. The papers were combined into the Norwalk Reflector-Herald, and every so often you hear an old-timer refer to the paper as the Reflector-Herald ... but not too often any more.

Mr. Snyder was president of the Associated Ohio Dailies and the vice-president of the World Press Congress prior to his death in 1941. The publication was subsequently purchased by Dudley A. White, Mrs. Dudley A. White, Mrs. Alice White Rau and Dudley White, Jr.

Inasmuch as he is a son-in-law of the late R.G. Snyder, and James G. Gibbs was the son-in-law of Frederick Wickham, who in turn, was the son-in-law of the founder, Samuel Preston, it can be said that two families have owned the Reflector throughout the 188-plus years it has been a “part and parcel” of Norwalk's history.[3]

The newspaper now is located at 61 E. Monroe St. Andrew Prutsok is the publisher and Joe Centers is the managing editor. Matt Roche is news editor, Mark Hazelwood is sports editor, and Cary Ashby and Zoe Greszler are staff writers. Ashley Pitts serves as the newsroom clerk and Don Hohler is the librarian. Regular newsroom contributors include Natalie Bowers, Jim Busek, Caiten Cameron, Don Hohler, Debbie Leffler, Madeline Roche, Amy Russell, Richard Russell, Ellen Simmons and Henry Timman.[4][5]

• Official website