The Adirondack Daily Enterprise celebrates its 127th birthday in this brand-spanking new year of 2022.

The Enterprise published special editions in 1969 on the 75th anniversary and again in 1994 on the 100th anniversary.

There are so many great stories buried in the pages of the anniversary editions. A very special story by Jerome Ripley Allen (a.k.a Rip), one of the best reporters to ever pound out those treasured pieces on the old typewriters — Coronas, Underwoods or maybe an L.C. Smiths, all scattered about the Enterprise office.

The pandemic hurt the Enterprise as it did every small newspaper and every small business. Veteran Enterprise deciders, such as Publisher Cathy Moore and Managing Editor Peter Crowley, left the helm, but Donna Leonard took on the business end and a skeleton news staff stepped up to the plate.

Reporter Elizabeth Izzo became managing editor. Reporter Aaron Cerbone writes long, accurate stories, as does the newest reporter Lauren Yates, even doing a man-on-the-street piece which we have not seen in a while. Parker O’Brien is trying to do it all as the new sports editor.

Behind the scenes is a bright young lady by the name of Tori Martinez. Tori, in production, does not get the bylines or the headlines but she is busier than a mosquito at a nudist camp … special editions, photo layouts, page layouts and interruptions by people like me. But she does it all with a smile, a wink and a nod and makes it look easy.

I know what it takes to churn out a daily newspaper with such a small staff! I congratulate all of you.

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A brief Enterprise history

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It was purchased when it as a weekly (in foreclosure) for $1,500 in 1906 by Kenneth W. Goldwaithe. John S. Ridenour purchased the Enterprise from the Goldwaithe family in 1918. He sold it to Fred Kury in 1949; Fred Kury sold it to Dean Carey in the early 1950s, who sold the newspaper to Jim Loeb and Roger Tubby in June, 1953; they sold the paper to William Doolittle around 1970.

I knew Mr. Ridenour when I was a newsboy and I worked for all of the above publishers (1951-1974) and through today, as the Enterprise is now owned by the Ogden newspaper chain of West Virginia.

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Mr. Ridenour’s background

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Mr. Ridenour was a lieutenant in the Pennsylvania National Guard “during the Mexican border dispute,” served with a machine gun company in MacArthur’s Rainbow Division in World War I and had already graduated from Cornell University with an engineering degree in 1908. He also had an extensive career as a journalist, including owning the “Bedford Inquirer” in his hometown of Bedford, Pennsylvania.

Mr. and Mrs. Ridenour moved to Washington when they sold the Enterprise. He died there of a heart attack at age 82.

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Mr. Ridenour reports to his mom

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His long, long letter (in excerpts) to his mother, flawlessly typed follows:

Saranac Lake, N.Y.

April 20, 1918

“Dear Mother:

“After ten days of hard work, Mr. Cannon and I have finally induced the owner of The Enterprise here to sell his property — and it was some tough job. It was only by the help of a great old character here, who had advised the present owner to come here fourteen years ago when the town was small, and who had stood by him ever since, that the deal was finally put through.

“If you were to spend a few days here, gossiping about the history and growth of this section, you would understand how delighted I am. You know from my former letter that when we came up here we thought the business of the paper was $19,000 per year. Well, I made a slight mistake — I thought that was the figure in 1916, but it was for 1915. There was a substantial increase in 1916, and in 1917 the gross business ran up to $27,000.

“It would take some time to tell you how this place has grown, and why its growth is bound to continue — but there is big money invested here by many of the biggest men in America, and the place will be quite a city in time, despite the fact that it is a most beautiful health resort. You will have to accept this on my say-so.

“This plant was all that I thought it was before coming up here, and the price, the original figure, seems to me to be ridiculously low — but I didn’t let the owner think so. He is a former New York Herald man, has cleaned up about $25,000 in addition to the support of his family in fourteen years, and wants to get to a daily proposition in a large field, but at the same time, was very slow to reach his decision of selling out, knowing that he has a good thing here.

“This man wired his tentative acceptance of our proposition and we came up here from New York. In the meantime his wife got him to change his mind. He said he would accept our proposition but with a larger down payment …”

The letter then went into every detail of the agreement — then: “This morning we closed an option, the days with the privilege of renewing for twenty days; and if I can finance the project in ten days, am to take charge on May 1. I paid $100 down on the option, to clinch it, so the man would not let his wife change his mind again, and hope to have the thing financed by May 1.

“One thing that makes me happy in getting located here is a most delightful place in which the family, if ever should care to sell out, and pull up stakes, may spend its reclining years in happiness and comfort without the drudgery and inconveniences of life in Bedford.

“The owner of the electric light and power systems [Paul Smith’s Electric Power and Railroad Company, Inc.] showed me some of the figures on the relative volume of electrical current consumed by this place and Lake Placid, [I never knew that Placid once got its electric power from Paul Smith’s — they now have their own municipal system] which is near, and which get their current from his plants. Lake Placid uses much more current in the summer months than in the winter months, showing it to be purely a summer resort, which Saranac Lake uses more current in the winter months than in summer, showing it to be an all-year-round town.

“Will close this rambling letter. Hope this will make you happy, for when I get settled here, I expect to stay here the rest of my life — to grow with the town…

“Love to all, Schell.”

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Editor’s note: The Enterprise had its origin date wrong for decades — it was widely believed the newspaper’s first edition was printed in 1894, thus why anniversary editions were published when they were, one year prior to the actual anniversaries. It is now known that the Enterprise was first published in 1895.