The Watkins family solid it in April 1972 to Inland Industries, Inc., of Lenexa, Kansas, and Smith-Walls Newspapers, Inc., of Fort Payne, Alabama.

[2][3] Jerry Litton visited the newspaper offices about 8:30 p.m. on August 3, 1976, to check results of the election in which he had won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, en route to a victory party in Kansas City.

According to the December 26, 1930, edition of the paper, two patrons were leaving a nearby theater when they saw smoke coming from the building.

As the fire department was arriving on the scene Chillicothe Mayor Harry Pardonner, who was also a fireman, was thrown from the truck as the ladder broke free and swung.

The newspaper's publishers assured their readers that every effort had been made to get that day's edition out via the old method of "setting the type by hand."