The origins of The Columbus Citizen-Journal date back to 1809 when the first printing press in central Ohio was introduced in the town of Worthington by two men from New England.
The newspaper was renamed The Ohio State Journal, and it became the official mouthpiece of the then-new Republican Party in the late 1850s, guided by its editor and proprietor, James M. Comly.
Following Comly's military service during the American Civil War, he returned to Columbus and rapidly established the Journal as one of the leading newspapers in Ohio.
Comly left the paper in 1872 when he was named to a diplomatic post in Hawaii, but his guidance had firmly established its importance in Ohio politics and news reporting.
After the Dispatch decided not to renew the joint operating agreement when it expired, Scripps sold the Citizen-Journal to a Bath Township (eastern Ohio) businessman, who stated he intended to publish it past January 1, 1986.
[1] In an ironic twist, after The Columbus Dispatch newspaper and other print properties were purchased from the Dispatch Printing Co. by GateHouse Media in mid-2015, it announced that the newspaper's newsroom would relocate from the paper's former headquarters at 34 S. Third Street in Columbus to a building also purchased by GateHouse at 62 E. Broad Street – a building originally constructed in 1929 as the new home of The Ohio State Journal.