The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-09-01
LOSS OF TICKET MADETEACHER
 INTO EDITOR

How a little yellow commutauon ticket, measuring some 4 inches got lost, fell on fertile ground and grew into big and busy newspaper, transforming its owner from per fectly good city school teacher into an equally good country editor, is an other one of those tall-oaks-from-lit- tle-acorns themes. chock full of that human interest stuff' which trans forms cub reporters into editors who are the roaring lions of their own home towns.
 It is the story of THE HOUR, from it's first modest weekly issue of ex- actly fifty years ago today, up to the present 24-page daily which extends it's golden anniversary greeting to thousands of readers.
 While the first HOUR was dated May 6, 1871, it's actual history dates way back to Civil War days when Brainerd W. Naples, who at that time was teaching in the old Riving- ton street school in New York City. wooed and won a Westport girl and came to that quiet but hospitable town to live.
 All went well until one eventfu1 day the homeward journey MT. Naples discovered that he had lost or mis- laid his communication ticket.
 The form of communication ticket in those days was as different from the coupon book now in use N was the system in vogue among train crews of then and today. The conductor was as much of a fixture on a particular train as was the t'Stamford'', or the "Naugatuck", or whatever pet name the particular engine that pulled it was disignated. The first of every month there was always little cere- train, particularly among the 'regu- lars in the smoking car, and the new communication tickets, which were simply small cards entitling the holder to travel between designated stations for the period of one month, were in spected and then put back into their little leather cases, furnished by the company, there to repose until a new one was purchased, unless other than regular trains were patronlzed, or a strang conductor should take the run for a, day.
 Just which combination MT. Naples ran into on that day when he missed his ticket, has been forgotton, but certain it is that he refused to pay his fare when the conductor rejected his explanation and demanded it, and MT. Naples was put off the train at the next stop.
 John Wade. of the HubbeIl, Wade Co.,, who in his younger days was connected with the Weekly Hour, un- der MT. Naples, says that the really funny part of this communication ticket story is that after MT. Naples had been put off the train at the first sta ton stop, which he thinks was Mt Vernon, he returned to New York and put up at his favorite stopping place, the Putnam House, of which his friend, Lawrence R. Kerr, was the proprietor at the time. and when he retired, the missing ticket dropped from some part of his clothing or from the vest pocket where he always carried it, and which many years aft CT he told to his then city editor as a joke on himself.
 From that day until his. death he a n -nntSnnERn and in1DlaCa bl0 enemy of the New York. New Haven end Hartford railroad. He wrote let ters to the Norwalk Gazette, the l Brfd geport Farmer, the Bridgeport | Standard and other leading weekly papers of that day, but in most in stances the attacks were so bitter that | they were not printed.
 Early the following spring MT MT 1 ples decided to start a newspaper so | as to get his grievances into print. | Anxious days followed that decision. | for his salary was small, and large | and growing family absorbed the
 major portion of it. and 1t was out of | the question for him to purchase a | printing outfit. he finally decided New York. and circulated from his
 home town with Westport date line.
 In July. 1873. The Hour was moved | to Norwalk, because of a larger field of endeavor and was printed by the
 South Norwa1k Sentinel. After a per 1 tod of early struggles The Hour in | 1875 was enabled to get it's own | printing plant and from that time on 1 the newspaper began to thrive. Aug l ust 5, 1893 the daily edition of the l Norwelk Hour was inaugurated, in a l field already occupied by the Norwalk | Gazette and the South NorwaIk Sen | tinel, both of which had entered the
 daily newspaper field some years prior l to The Hour.
 The youthful daily went through
 another trying period and for some yougster. but as the daily grew the of MT. Naples, December 12, 1900,
 the Evening Hour was an established
 fixture. The Gazette had discontinued
 and The Hour and The Sentinel had the field.
 | MT. Naples sons, William K. Ma
 plea and James w, Naples ran the
 paper for time after his death, but
 February es, 1901, the present owners took hold of the paper
 r Edward !, Thomas, aa publisher and
 manager, Victor W, Ferris, managing
 editor, and Wellington A. Tollea as
 associate editor, are all newspaper men Of experience, They have spared no effort to place The Hour in the
 first ranks of Connecticut newspaper
 dom, where it standa today in a home
 of it own with upwards of 5000 cir
 culation. operating 6 intertypea and 6
 Hoe twenty-four page stereotype press
 In addition The Hour maintains well Iequlpped job printing department in