Hannibal Courier-Post
newspaper in Hannibal, Missouri
The Hannibal Courier-Post is a daily newspaper published in Hannibal, Missouri, United States. It is owned by Carpenter Media Group.
In addition to Hannibal, the Courier-Post covers several other communities in Marion, Pike, and Ralls Counties, including the cities of Bowling Green, Center, Louisiana, Monroe City, New London, Palmyra, Perry, Saverton, and Vandalia.
History
The newspaper claims to be the oldest daily newspaper in Missouri, having printed daily since 1853 and tracing its lineage back to several weekly newspapers in and around Hannibal: the Commercial Advertiser (1837), later called the Pacific Monitor (1840), Hannibal Journal (1841) and Hannibal Journal and Western Union (1850); the Hannibal Gazette (1846); the Hannibal Messenger (1851); and a Palmyra weekly, the Missouri Courier, founded in 1832 and consolidated with the Gazette in 1848.
The Journal converted to a daily March 16, 1853, the Messenger in 1858. The Messenger combined with the Courier in 1863, adopting the name North Missouri Courier. The daily Courier in 1891 merged with the Daily Post, marking the debut of the name Hannibal Courier-Post. The Morning Journal was acquired in 1918.
Individual owners had published the Courier-Post and its predecessors since the 1850s, including Thomas B. Morse, who had founded the Daily Post in 1886 and remained publisher of the merged newspaper until 1907. Morse sold the paper that year to Lee Enterprises, which invested heavily in its new acquisition, with a new printing press, Associated Press wire, and a new building.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5649159. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1853, 1837, 1840 and 1841.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hannibal Courier-Post” 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.