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Editor's Note: Our countdown of the Top 10 Stories of 2019 continues with story No. 2, as selected by the newsroom staff of The Vindicator.
OUNGSTOWN -- A significant change in Ohio journalism occurred with the closure of The Vindicator, but its name is living on thanks to the Tribune Chronicle.
Just days after it marked its 150th anniversary, its owners announced The Vindicator would shut down, effective Aug. 31.
Two weeks before the closing, the Tribune Chronicle reached an agreement to have Vindicator readers continue to receive a daily newspaper under the same masthead.
The Tribune Chronicle, with a 207-year legacy, acquired the rights to The Vindicator name, its list of subscribers, the Vindy.com internet domain and hired some Vindicator employees.
A new Vindicator was launched Sept. 1, the day after the old newspaper's last publishing date, marking a new chapter in local journalism.
The Vindicator's longtime owners made the difficult decision to close -- announcing it June 28 -- unable to find a buyer and after losing money in 20 of the past 22 years with no signs of a business turnaround.
The announcement became an international story with reporters and photographers from several news organizations spending time in Youngstown at The Vindicator to write about the newspaper's closure.
With the sale of the name and subscription list, The Vindicator lives on and remains a key part of the region's news landscape.
Meanwhile, the building at 107 Vindicator Square that used to house The Vindicator in downtown Youngstown is for sale.
In its first edition, The Mahoning Vindicator, published June 25, 1869, called for the rescue of government from the grasp of its "imperialistic assassins." It was published by James H. Odell. Legend has it that he was run out of Beaver County, Pa., for offending Republicans with his staunch Democratic positions and came to Youngstown, where he named the newspaper -- believing he had found vindication here. .
The newspaper changed hands several times before William F. Maag Sr. on Dec. 22, 1887, purchased at a sheriff's sale the Vindicator nameplate and its North Phelps Street print shop that was destroyed a few months earlier in a fire. The newspaper would remain in the Maag-Brown family for 132 years.