Background

Chesley T. Perry was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1910. Despite this fact, he considers himself to be a Florida native. His parents frequently visited Boston during the summer months from Florida, and it just so happened that his birth fell on a particular summer excursion. Mr. Perry's father purchased land in Alva in 1898 consisting of citrus groves. "I think this is the best place to grow up", said Mr. Perry when discussing his memories of life along the Caloosahatchee river, three miles from downtown. His family consisted of himself and two other siblings -- an older brother and younger sister.

The Paper

Mr. Perry started working for the paper at a young age. He first became aware of the paper while working for the Lee County bank in 1925. According to Mr. Perry, following the " Florida Boom," a big depression ensued. As a result, his job at the bank ended due to it going broke. He then applied for a job at the Ft. Myers Press in 1929. The paper immediately wanted to hire him and his career began a week later. Mr. Perry discussed the rich history of the newspaper.

It came into existence in 1884 by mere chance. A newspaperman named Stafford Cleveland from New York was prescribed by his doctor to move to Florida. After taking a look at the maps of the area, he decided on a little place named Ft. Ogden. "Today it is a wide place in the road with no more than a filling station" according to Mr. Perry. The story goes on to say how Cleveland packed up his printing press and started his journey to Ft. Ogden. The only thing was, back in 1884, the railroads only went down to Cedar Key. Taking a boat was the only way to finish off the trip to Ft. Ogden. When the skipper of the ship, a Ft. Myers local, received word that there was a newspaper man aboard the ship, he immediately decided that Ft. Myers was in need of his services and changed course. Cleveland was unaware of the change in course due to his unconsciousness for the duration of the trip. Mr. Perry laughs, as this was the birth of the Ft. Myers Press, which would later become our current Ft. Myers News Press.

The New-Press at 100yrs of publication 1984

Starting work on a newspaper was not an easy task. He started out as a bookkeeper for the paper. There were seventeen employees working for the press at the time. Perry recalls that the editor had no desire to work the business side of the paper. It was easy for him to work his way up in status handling this side of the paper. At around the same time, Mr. Perry began working for the paper, another paper came into existence by the name of The Tropical News. The part-owner of the Ft. Myers Press, Barron Collier, was able to put up the financial backing to merge the two papers. A name change took place combining the titles of both papers and forming what we know today as, the Ft. Myers News- Press. This occurred in 1931 while Mr. Perry was working for the paper. In 1935, he became business manager and handled most business affairs. By 1940, Mr. Perry became general manager, completing his control of the business aspect of the paper. In 1971, the Ganett Company bought the paper and placed Mr. Perry as president and publisher of the News-Press. When Mr. Perry started work for the paper, it had about 17 people on the staff and a circulation of under 2000. When he left, the paper had 366 employees and circulation days of up to 100,000.

The Growth

The role of the paper was always important in this community according to Mr. Perry. "The paper was obviously the leader in civic community development", was Perry's response to the specific role of the paper during his career as general manager. The voice of the paper and its opinions on matters was of great significance to the community. Its growth paralleled that of the community to a great extent. When Mr. Perry started out, the paper had used an eight-page printing press that printed eight pages at a time in black and white. Up to 2000 papers an hour could be printed. The paper came out five days a week when he first started and ran about six pages. It grew during the Great Depression when Roosevelt opened up the banks in the country and the Lee County bank was re-opened allowing financial backing for the paper. After the merger in 1931, the people of Ft. Myers wanted a morning paper. The Press had previously been an afternoon paper, but when a vote of 4-1 came through the Chamber of Commerce, this immediately changed. According to Mr. Perry, ". . . this was probably the best single thing we did". The paper was now printed at night, which allowed some more time to receive articles that were pertinent and print them in a timely fashion during the late hours in the evening. In 1943, the paper became much larger. It purchased a thirty-two-page printing press with color capabilities. They thought that this printing press would last them for quite some time. Mr. Perry calculated that due to increasing circulation, this would not last them past 1950. Three more printing press apparatus' were purchased before he retired from the paper. With the merger, other things had changed. The paper was printed everyday. Not a morning was missed despite what catastrophes with hurricanes and financial issues brought about.

The Controversey

There were many issues that the paper took in the community. Mr. Perry discussed the biggest issue afflicting this community for some time being racism. The paper was considering the most liberal force in the community, which led it into some disturbing situations. When the editor of the paper elected to put the photographs of the African-American students graduating from a local high school, there was an enormous outrage in the community. On another occasion, when the editor placed photographs of a recently married African-American couple, a cross was burned on his lawn. Racism was the issue facing the community in the fifties and sixties. Mr. Perry felt that the paper rightfully acknowledged the achievements of the black community which seemed to be unfairly neglected by the rest of the community.

An aside

There were so many things that this interview told about the newspaper. The little things seemed to be the most interesting. The stories about how the power was not functioning due to a hurricane and the military aided the News-Press by supplying a jeep to move the belt on the printing press. Like Mr. Perry said, not a day was missed. Another interesting side note was the paper's pets. In the atrium of the current News-Press building, two alligators were kept as pets. They were kept legally until people felt they were getting too big and posed a threat. Only in Florida would a newspaper have alligators as pets!

I would just like to thank Mr. Perry for providing a delightful and interesting interview on the Ft. Myers News-Press.

The News-Press Pets- Ralph & Cedric ,1971

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