It had grown to nine newspapers in the northeastern United States by 1970, when it was acquired by Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and later a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
James H. Ottaway Sr. founded the company in November 1936, when he purchased the Bulletin, a semi-weekly paper in Endicott, New York, that he converted to a daily within a year.
News Corp. CEO and former Wall Street Journal editor Robert James Thomson indicated that the newspapers were "not strategically consistent with the emerging portfolio" of the company.
[6] GateHouse in turn filed prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 27, 2013, to restructure its debt obligations in order to accommodate the acquisition.
[8] Dow Jones Local Media Group published eight daily and 15 weekly newspapers in seven U.S. states.