Southeastern Newspapers Corp., the predecessor of Morris
Communications Co., bought the five-day-a-week Southeast Alaska
Empire in Alaska’s capital city in March 1969.
The newspaper then had 14 full-time and six part-time employees.
When Jeff Wilson (later publisher) moved from Augusta, Ga.,
to become advertising director in April of 1975, he found
typesetters wearing hard hats for fear of the ceiling falling
in and large rats (2-feet-long) in the composing room.
Under his guidance as general manager and publisher, the rats
were evicted and the newspaper became a daily and renamed
the Juneau Empire.
Also in early 1987 the newspaper moved into a modern, three-story
building that became the first Morris building constructed
from the ground-up.
