of the newly formed Brattleboro Publishing Company, one half owned by Walter Hubbard and the other half by Ephraim Crane and Howard Crosby Rice. Rice became the publisher and editor in 1918. The Phoenix served as the Reformer'''s weekly companion. Moreover, the Reformer went to a daily publication schedule. The Phoenix weekly was discontinued in 1955. Howard Rice was publisher and editor of the Reformer until he handed over the editor post to his son-in-law, John Simpson Hooper, in 1950, and the publisher post in 1964. John Hooper was editor and publisher of the Reformer until he retired in 1971. He was instrumental in turning the paper from a Republican to an independent paper, described on its masthead as: "An independent newspaper, dedicated to conservation and progress in public and humane affairs". In 1971, Norman Runnion became managing editor until 1989. The 1913 merger was considered by some to be the "true" founding date of the paper; according to an article in the March 4, 1925 issue, "Daily Reformer Now 15 Years Old": The Brattleboro Daily Reformer celebrated yesterday its 15th anniversary as a daily. As a weekly publication The Reformer dates back to the dim and distant date of 1876, but its debut as a daily – with that word ‘Daily’ in emphatic black-face letter-spaced Gothic type on its first page – came on Monday, March 3, 1913. Records at the Brooks Memorial Library, the main library of Brattleboro, list the publication history of the paper in 2006 asWindham County Reformer, 1876-1897Semi-weekly Windham County Reformer, 1897-1901Windham County Reformer, 1901-1912,Brattleboro Daily Reformer (after merger with Vermont Phoenix), 1913-1955Brattleboro Daily Reformer and Vermont Phoenix, 1955-1973Brattleboro Reformer, 1973-present Much of the historical information in this section comes from a special 1981 section of the Reformer, published on the occasion of the paper's moving from downtown Brattleboro to its headquarters on Black Mountain Road. The Reformer in the late-20th and 21st centuries By the time Howard Rice died, he wholly owned the Reformer, leaving it in his will to his three children, Howard, Eleanor and Marion (and her husband John Hooper). It was then sold to the Miller Group of Newspapers in Pittsfield, Mass. By January 2015, it was owned by New England Newspaper Incorporated, under corporate owner, Digital First Media, which at the time was trying to sell off its 76 daily and 160 weekly newspapers. By July 2015, the Reformer had