Don Mellett
American newspaper editor (1891–1926)
Donald Ring Mellett (September 26, 1891 – July 16, 1926) was an American newspaper editor who was assassinated after confronting local organized crime in his newspaper.
Mellett was born in Elwood, Indiana, as the child of a newspaper editor. He followed with the family tradition by becoming a journalist, as did several of his siblings. He studied at Indiana University, where he became the editor of the school's newspaper, The Daily Student (now the Indiana Daily Student).
Early career
After leaving college due to illness, Mellett took on work with the Indianapolis News and the National Enquirer. Some time later, he purchased the Columbus Ledger, and began working as its editor, before moving on to a position at The Akron Press. Then, in January 1925 he accepted an offer to edit the Canton Daily News in Canton, Ohio.
At the time, the Daily News was struggling, and had only half the circulation of its rival paper, The Repository. He began using the paper to fight local corruption, and was soon successful in pressuring the mayor to suspend the police chief. His efforts also led to the conviction of two underworld figures.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5293134. VIAF identifies the subject as 78841690. The Library of Congress control number is n2009007766. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1891, 1926 and 1925.
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This entry incorporates text from “Don Mellett” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.