Published by The Evansville Courier

When rising waters invaded The Evansville Courier building at 125 Main St. that January, the paper's presses - located in the basement - were put out of commission.

Though they were strong competitors, The Evansville Press offered The Courier use of its presses until the crisis passed. Printing continued there, and a joint operating agreement was sealed on Jan. 1, 1939.

The Courier officially moved its offices to The Press building at Second and Vine streets, where independent news staffs published the morning Courier and the afternoon Press. The papers formed the Evansville Printing Corp. to handle business and printing functions, and to publish a combined Sunday Courier & Press.

The arrangement, to this day, has confused many local residents who presumed that both newspapers were owned by the same company.

While The Courier always had been locally owned, The Press had been owned and operated by the Scripps Howard newspaper chain since its founding here in 1906. Under the joint operating agreement, the two remained independent, competitors, and continue to compete today.

In 1986, Scripps Howard sold The Press to Hartmann Publications Inc. and bought The Courier from its local owners.

Through the decades, newspapers across the nation, large and small, have formed joint operating agreements.

When the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968 found the contracts to be in violation of Sherman Anti-Trust laws, the papers' futures fell under question. But the operating agreement again was upheld two years later with passage of the Newspaper Preservation Act.