Guelph Mercury.com

The Guelph Mercury is an important recorder of the events that have shaped our local community. We've been here to watch, comment on, photograph and provide a physical record of the region for almost 150 years. There is no better snapshot of this community than revisiting the pages of the old Mercury, Daily Mercury and Mercury-Advertiser. Different names, but the same paper and the same job sidents. The newspaper, in many incarnations, has been a part of the community since 1854. In fact we're one of the oldest broadsheet newspapers in Ontario. The Mercury began as a weekly founded by George Keeling. In 1862 James Innes, a Toronto newspaperman came to Guelph to assume the editorship of the Guelph Advertiser. He formed a partnership with John C. McLagan and purchased the Guelph Mercury (another weekly) from George Palmer. The two newspapers were combined to become the Mercury and Advertiser. In the Confederation year, 1867, the Mercury was expanded to a daily newspaper by owner James Innes. Innes sold his interest in the newspaper to J. Innes McIntosh in 1905. McIntosh further increased the size of the newspaper by buying a competing daily, the Guelph Herald in 1924. He then sold out to James Playfair in 1929. Less than 20 years later, Thomson Newspapers Corp bought the Mercury, where it remained until being bought in 1995 by Hollinger Inc. In the summer of 1999 the paper was owned briefly by Sun Media. Currently, the Guelph Mercury is owned by Torstar Corporation, and is part of a group called Grand River Valley Newspapers which also publishes the The Record.