On Oct. 26, 1894, John Shively Knight, the man who parlayed the Akron Beacon Journal into the Knight Newspaper empire, was born in Bluefield, W.Va. Knight was also instrumental in Akron's progression from a canal town to an industrial center.

He grew up in Akron, where his father, Charles Landon Knight, worked his way up from advertising manager to editor and publisher of the Beacon Journal in 1909.

Knight attended Cornell University but left in 1917 to join the Army. He saw action in the Argonne during World War I. When he returned, he became a sports writer for the Beacon Journal.

When his father died in 1933, Knight became editor and publisher of the paper.

He eventually purchased other papers, including the Detroit Free Press and the Charlotte Observer, and wrote a column called the "Editor's Notebook." Both papers and the column won Pulitzer Prizes in 1968.

In 1974, Knight's 15 newspapers merged with California-based Ridder Publications. When Knight retired as editorial chairman of the company in 1976, he had accumulated 26 Pulitzers.

When he died of a heart attack in Akron in 1981 at age 86, Knight-Ridder had 32 newspapers and four television stations.

Rebecca Goodman

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com or call (513) 768-8361