| The Manhattan Mercury | |
| Type: | Daily newspaper |
| Format: | Broadsheet |
| Owners: | Seaton Publishing Co, Inc. |
| Founder: | Jefferson J. Davis and Clair M. Patee |
| Publisher: | Ned Seaton |
| Headquarters: | 318 North 5th Street Manhattan, Kansas |
| Circulation: | 15,137 |
| Circulation Ref: | [1] |
The Manhattan Mercury is the local newspaper for Manhattan, Kansas. The Mercury is a daily newspaper published in the afternoon five days a week, and in the morning on Sunday. No Saturday edition is issued. The newspaper is physically printed on the Mercury's own in-house presses. The newspaper also maintains an online presence.[2]
The Mercury was founded as a weekly publication on May 9, 1884, at a time when Manhattan was already served by two other competing newspapers.[3] It became a daily on February 8, 1909.
After passing through four different owners, the newspaper was purchased by Fay N. Seaton in 1915.[4] He was the founder of the Seaton publishing group, which still owns the paper.[5] [6] Fay Seaton ran the paper until his death in 1952. During his time as publisher, The Mercury bought out all of its in-town rivals, beginning with the Morning Chronicle around 1915. Seaton thereafter operated the Chronicle as a separate paper until 1943, when it was merged with the Mercury. In 1926, Seaton purchased the Manhattan Nationalist – the oldest newspaper in Manhattan, dating back to 1859 – and began operating under both names (until 1943). Fay Seaton's son Fred Andrew Seaton ran another newspaper in the Seaton publishing group, the Hastings (Neb.) Tribune, before entering into politics.