[3] It was locally owned by the McMurray family from 1923 to 2016, when it was acquired by GateHouse Media, which became Gannett in an acquisition in 2019.

The content of the paper during this time period included many historical articles about North Carolina and accounts of the Civil War.

The Hale family moved to New York after the newspaper buildings were destroyed in the Civil War.

In 1990, the McMurrays merged the Observer and Times into a single morning paper, The Fayetteville Observer-Times.

[1] The Fayetteville Observer launched its first website in 1995 and it has a presence on Facebook for distribution of news and interaction with readers.