It was founded in 1844 as a single sheet listing visitors to the seaside town.
[2] It is now owned by Reach Regionals, formerly Trinity Mirror,[3] and in 2018 it was announced that its website would merge with that of the Liverpool Echo, with the distinct printed product continuing.
[7] Former editors of the Southport Visiter included Alan Pinch and John Dempsey.
[8] On April Fools' Day 2016 the paper published a hoax announcement that it would be changing the spelling of its name to Visitor, and a later retraction.
[9] In 1996 the Press Complaints Commission rejected a case against the paper, brought by a man who believed it had published "intrusive amounts of detail regarding the conviction of a man for assaulting the complainant's sister-in-law".