In October of 1956 Harry Genova had the opportunity to bid on the newspaper rights of Stofflet News Co. in Ann Arbor Mi.  He was awarded the rights, and named the company Washtenaw News Company, Inc. with hopes of delivering to all of Washtenaw County. He had to get permission to use the name as The Ann Arbor News had the legal rights to the name. The business was being run out of an old poultry shop located at 310 W Washington so he took over the lease and continued to operate out of the very small office/warehouse space. At the time there were only 3 newspapers that made up the business:  The Detroit Free Press, Detroit News and Detroit Times.

He opened and commuted from Grosse Pointe Woods thru June of 1957 when he moved the family to Ann Arbor. Nick had just graduated from high school and proceeded to become a part of the company by learning the distribution of the papers and helping on the weekend with collections from the carrier and corner sales people.

In the next few years the New York Times and Wall Street Journal were added to the distribution portfolio and the sales grew nicely. Soon the Chicago Tribune and Toledo Blade were added and things were going well. The area of distribution began to increase into Ypsilanti and as far as the Metro Airport.

It was in the early 1960’s that the Detroit Times went out of business. It was bought out by the Detroit News. There was some settling of sales then but things were still good.

In the late 1960s Washtenaw News was given the opportunity to become distributor for the New York Times in the Lansing MI area. With Son Ken going to MSU it afforded the opportunity to start distribution in that area, and Ken started forming a distributorship in Lansing. All went well there until Ken graduated and was ready to move on. At that time Son Jim was ready to take over the area and moved to the Lansing area with his wife Leslie to work full time at the business. He later named it  Genova News Company.

In the early 1970’s  Washtenaw News was offered the opportunity to do the New York Times in the Kalamazoo Mi. area. With daughter Christine marrying a past newspaper carrier Chris Benson it was decided to take the area over and have Chris and Christine run the operation. They later named it Benson News Company.

In 1972 Harry suffered a heart attack. He decided to sell the business to Nick who bought the company, and he and his wife Sharon continued to operate the company as Washtenaw News Company. Sales continued to grow as did the size of the papers. It became evident that the building at 310 W Washington just wasn’t going to hold the advance sections and total volume of newspapers. In 1976 a new office was built at 1239 Rosewood, a growing commercial area off S Industrial. That did work for a few years but then again a new office was built at 1080 Rosewood to accommodate for increased space needs.   In the late 1970’s Washtenaw News added the street sale distribution of The Ann Arbor News.

In 1982 the USA Today launched, and printed a paper that sold like we had not seen since the old “Special Editions” days like Man Lands on The Moon, JFK Shot and Killed, Elvis Dies.  Washtenaw News continued to grow to over 60 employees and 22 vehicles.  Washtenaw News had grown to a very large distributorship covering 100’s of miles per day.  Then in the late 1980’s we started to notice a decline in sales. The internet was beginning to take hold.

In early 1990’s it was deemed best to form a home delivery network named Delivery Unlimited to go into home delivery sales with the Wall Street Journal. It proved to be a good move as all the newspapers wanted a home delivery data base. With the sales dropping off rather fast the WNC had to go thru painful cuts of both area covered and employee cuts. WNC still needed warehouse space for storage of pre printed material so a move to 1939 S Industrial was made in 1992.

In the early 2000’s Single copy sales continued to fall but home delivery continued to hold its own.  WNC continued to make cuts and turned into a computer based newspaper distributor.  We were no longer able to function as in the times of the 1960’s and 1970s’ and even though we were considered a dinosaur in the world of distributors, we  made changes and were able to hang on. Fortunately our Delivery Unlimited arm had picked up the distribution of the New York Times Home Delivery and the Detroit Free Press gave us the opportunity to become their Home delivery agent. Once this happened we seemed to be able to stop the downdraft of sales and solidified our position.

Presently Washtenaw News  covers the entire Washtenaw County as its delivery area. Our work force is considerably smaller with about 30 dedicated employees and Independent Contractors.

In all, Washtenaw News Company is a company that has seen the rise and fall of the newspaper industry. It has helped many people get started in the business world while providing daily newspaper distribution to Washtenaw County for 60 years.

September 2016