Hot Off the Press

Written by by Edward J. Bennett

When radio stations began to move into smaller communities after World War II, they were staffed by an engineer to run the station, some salespeople, and an announcer or two.

Most radio people had no newspaper experience. They were not equipped to gather, edit and process news. In many cases the stations in small communities relied heavily for their news on the hometown daily; so fortunate indeed was the broadcaster with a newspaper in town.

One early radio station licensed to broadcast in the western part of New Hampshire was located at Claremont. WTSV was fortunate to have in town the Eagle which has been published there as a daily since 1913.
Soon after I became publisher of the Eagle in 1961, its managing editor, Nelson Bryant, complained frequently – and often bitterly – that WTSV was cribbing local news from our newspaper, then broadcasting it over the air; of course with no attribution to the Eagle.

Bryant explained that the station would send someone up to the Eagle’s pressroom right after the papers began to roll off the press around 1 o’clock in the afternoon. With a copy hot off the press, the radio station messenger would hightail it back to the station, just in time for the 1:30 PM news which would be read over the airwaves, direct from the pages of the Eagle.

“You can even hear the pages rustling,” complained the disgusted Bryant. The managing editor was outraged at this blatant plagiarism and argued with ingenuity that we manufacture a special edition, “just for the radio station”.

The Eagle’s news staff were pitched into this project with alacrity. Assignments were handed out by Bryant for all sorts of bogus stories, and when the work was done and set into type, it was a work of geniuses, motivated in their work as never before.

Before the plates of the regular afternoon edition of the Eagle were strapped to the press, this very special page passed through the stereotype room to the pressroom, where only one or two were in fact run through the press.
When WTSV’s representative arrived at the Eagle on schedule, he unknowingly picked up this bogus edition and hurried back to the station. Everyone at the Eagle gathered around the radio that afternoon for the news. And startling news it was.

“The fire department had been called out for suspicious fires at the Moody Hotel,” one story read. The broadcaster continued, “And the police report that the chief’s car was stolen right in front of the station.” Also, “the school superintendant was apprehended for impaired driving – and in a school bus.”

WTSV had swallowed the Eagle’s bogus front page hook, line, and sinker. The entire newspaper’s staff was rolling in the aisle. It was the best show to hit Claremont in a year.

Pretty soon the radio station’s phone was ringing off the hook. “What the hell do you mean,” asked the chief of police, “that my car was stolen? And the school superintendent (a known teetotaler) driving a bus under the influence?”

The station’s distraught manager soon admitted that its source of information had been that afternoon’s Eagle. “Blame them,” he said, “not us.”

But no copy of the Eagle to match the one at WTSV could even be found, and for good reason: Theirs was the only one extant.


Hot Off the Press is taken from "Yankee Editor" Vignettes & Anecdotes by a New England Country Editor and Legislator by Edward J. Bennett. The first printing of Yankee Editor was sold out and a second printing has been released by HNH Publishing.

"Yankee Editor"
Vignettes & Anecdotes by a New England Country Editor and Legislator
By Edward J. Bennett.
227 pp
$25.00 Plus $4.95 Priority Shipping & Handling
Heart of New Hampshire Publishing
Second Printing

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Littleton, The Little Town that Could - The Early Years

Building Community and Developing Economically in the North Country
Written by Wayne D. King
First in a series of five
Part One: The Early Years – Crisis, Hope and Hard Work


Walking through Littleton is, at times, nearly a spiritual experience. There is a spirit in the air that one rarely finds these days. A pride, a sense of place, a community ethos that is quite nearly palpable. The storefronts are full and when word goes out about available space, a new business pounces.
Over the past two decades nearly every town in America has added the catch phrase “Economic Development” to its vocabulary but few have found the formula for making robust growth a reality. . . Littleton is an exception. In just over two decades Littleton has become a model - not only for New Hampshire - but for the nation in this area. What’s their secret? Hard work no doubt plays a critical role, but just as important is that they have focused on building a powerful sense of community at the same time that they have focused on the more commonly known fundamentals for economic growth. They have built Social Capital at the same time that they have improved infrastructure and other fundamentals of economic growth.
It was not always this way.

Paul McGoldrick

In the early and mid 1970’s Littleton was a town in crisis – economically and socially. Nearly 1/2 of the storefronts on Main Street were vacant; jobs were scarce and unemployment hovered around 15%. What jobs were available were, by and large, low paying, low skill, often piecework jobs.

“I remember clearly watching ladies walk out of the footware factory with their arms filled with supplies to make shoes at home,” says Paul McGoldrick one of the architects of Littleton’s now-vibrant economic atmosphere. “The young people just moved away once they were through with school.”

It was at that time that a group of local visionaries, both longtime residents and newcomers got together to take action. It all began rather awkwardly at first. The group would gather and discuss how to bring new businesses to the area. When they heard about a business that might have an interest, according to McGoldrick “We would go bang on a local farmer’s door and see if he had some land available. It was a seat of the pants effort, but it was a start. One day we were meeting with Paul Guilderson from the state’s office of industrial development and in the middle of our discussions Guilderson banged his fist down on the table and proclaimed “Damnit I’m done bringing anyone up here until you folks get it together and develop an industrial park!” Within weeks, the group announced the formation of the Littleton Industrial Development Corporation a nonprofit group headed by newcomer and Harvard Business School graduate King Covey.

King Covey

Parts [I] [II] [III] [IV] [V]

Fields of Lupine Festival - June

Littleton Profile Part IV Caring for Seniors

Part four of a five part series
Parts [I] [II] [III] [IV] [V]


A Covered Footbridge connects the center of town with Littleton's Senior Center

Caring for Seniors

In building a sense of community Littleton has kept an eye on both its workforce and those who are no longer in the workforce. A beautiful new Senior Center is joined to Main Street by a handicapped accessible covered walking bridge across the Ammonoosuc River, allowing for the movement of people between Main Street and the Senior Center. The bridge is a centerpiece of a larger effort called “Riverwalk” intended to connect the Main Street with the Ammonoosuc River. Through an aggressive effort to secure grants Littleton has pumped more than 1.4 million dollars into this effort. Highlighting the economic efficacy of such investments is the new Riverglen Retirement Complex a beautiful privately owned assisted-living community. One could hardly imagine a better-situated spot for mom or dad when they are no longer capable of living alone. Senior transportation also provides the opportunity to go further a-field.
A new thirty million dollar hospital is also a great source of pride for the community and provides quality healthcare as well as employment opportunities.

Affordable Housing for the Workforce
Private/Public Partnerships and collaboration between nonprofit organizations and businesses also have played an important role in the towns success. In 1991, David Wood, a community activist and social entrepreneur, spearheaded the development of an affordable housing organization called AHEAD (Affordable Housing, Education and Development). In its thirteen years of existence AHEAD has developed or acquired more than 250 units of housing to maintain a stock of affordable housing within the area. Among these is Ammonoosuc Green, a 17 unit building that has gone from eyesore to centerpiece in the development of Littleton’s social capital. Don Jutton, formerly town manager of Littleton and a key player in the Littleton renaissance says of AHEAD, “I really like the way AHEAD provides a hand up, not a handout, to families in need." AHEAD has recently begun to develop more than 100,000 square feet of space in the old Littleton Hospital building employing an entrepreneurial mixture of commercial space and affordable housing to finance its future. Wood says there is still plenty of commercial space for new businesses but they already have 13,000 feet of commercial space rented and are preparing to move forward on a seventeen unit affordable housing project for low income elderly.

Parts [I] [II] [III] [IV] [V]

Littleton Part V A Committment to Learning

Parts [I] [II] [III] [IV] [V]

Part five of a five part series

The Littleton Area Learning Center

In the early 90’s, community leaders, led by Paul McGoldrick, also a Harvard Business School Graduate, who assumed the Chair of LIDC from King Covey in 1986, began to look at the issue of continuing education. This came partly as a result of the advocacy of local insurance agent Bruce Hadlock - who had played an ongoing role in the economic development of Littleton. At the time, post secondary opportunities as well as professional development training for local residents meant driving at least an hour or more. McGoldrick saw an opportunity and he pressed others into action. Paul Denton, President of the Northern Community Investment Corporation and members of the LIDC joined together to craft a proposal that turned an unused building into the Littleton Learning Center. Bringing together the Community Technical College, The University of New Hampshire College for Life Long Learning, and state and local agencies they developed a plan to provide opportunities for improving job skills for existing businesses, providing needed educational opportunities synchronized with local job opportunities and space for specialty classes and continuing education seminars. Today the 30,000 square foot Littleton Area Learning Center is a high tech educational resource center housing the College for Life Long Learning, The NH Community Technical College, The Gregg Public Safety Academy, New Hampshire Works, the North Country Health Consortium, the Northern NH Area Health Education Center and a Teacher Center serving as a professional development resource for teachers from schools in Littleton and the surrounding communities.

The Littleton Area Learning Center proved its worth thirteen days after September 11, 2001, when Hitchner Manufacturing announced that they intended to leave Littleton. Led by Town Manager Don Jutton a “SWAT” team of citizens, including Paul McGoldrick, Brien War, John Simpson, of the US Small Business Development Center, and representatives from the Learning Center’s various resources, swung into action. They met with leaders of the company and determined that the principle issues evolved around the need to increase productivity and enhance their workforce. Together they devised a training program that would meet the company’s needs and on Christmas Eve of 2001 Hitchner announced that they would be remaining in Littleton.

Littleton has come a long way. In 2003 Littleton was named a “Great American Main Street” by Main Street USA Inc. a national nonprofit that works to assist communities with the main street development efforts. Long time resident Bob Copenhaver originally got Littleton into the Main Steet program but years of hardwork by many citizens and an investment of more than 195,000 raised from the town and its businesses, culminated in the award of which they are exceedingly proud.
A National Model

Developing this vision and formula for success was not easy and for Littleton it was an evolutionary process, but being on the vanguard usually is. Today, aside from the success of the industrial park, Littleton has an unemployment rate of 2.0%. It has among the lowest electric rates in all of New England; Its tax base in only ten years has nearly tripled and it has become a national model for small community economic development.

Part of being a true model, however, means that your work is NEVER done. Littleton is not resting on its laurels. It is looking to the future and planning. Right now they are engaged in discussions with Lisbon and Bethlehem about a three-town industrial park, called the “Tri-Town Initiative”; they are also in the Initial stages of the development of the Littleton Arts Museum, highlighting White Mountain Art and Littleton’s historic dominance in the Stereoscopic art industry. Ron Murro, who developed another centerpiece for town, The Grist Mill, is one of twelve citizens working to make it the dream of a museum a reality.
It has not been an easy process, but one thing is clear: It works . . . and it is infectious. A strong sense of community feeds on itself. Littleton seems to have found the formula: Communication, cooperation and investment in both economic infrastructure and people have brought about a town that sparkles in every sense of the word.

To learn more about Littleton visit their Website www.littleton.nh.us
Parts [I] [II] [III] [IV] [V]