About

In August 1876, R. A. Daniel left his position at the Darien Timber Gazette in order to move to Jesup and establish the Jesup Sentinel that same month. The paper was a Democratic weekly that circulated every Wednesday at a subscription cost of one dollar. Daniel and a Mr. Lester edited and published the Sentinel, which became Wayne County’s legal organ in 1876, for less than a year. In May 1877, T. P. Littlefield, owner of the Jesup House hotel, purchased the paper from Daniel. Littlefield managed the newspaper for almost ten years before selling out to John F. Stone and Newt M. Pafford in January 1887. Pafford’s tenure only lasted a few months, but Stone remained as owner until 1889 when he sold out to Ben C. Milliken. Under Milliken’s management, the paper became a populist organ, and editorially voiced support for the People’s Party of Georgia during its formation in 1892. That same year, Stone, who had stayed as editor after selling the paper to Milliken, resigned from his position. Milliken was an active member of the People’s Party, and ran for congress on the Populist ticket in 1896 and 1898. The Jesup Sentinel continued to publish during Milliken’s political activity, but this did not stop the Tifton Gazette, a particularly vocal opponent of Milliken, from commenting on September 2, 1898 that Milliken “has been unable to successfully run a six-column newspaper.” In 1907, Ben Milliken was joined by his son, Richard Milliken, and they operated the paper together for the next ten years. The Jesup Sentinel absorbed a recently-established rival, the Wayne County News in December 1910, and the paper’s masthead printed as the Sentinel-news from December 15 to December 22, 1910. The title changed again in 1911, and the title read as the Jesup Sentinel and Wayne County News from January 5, 1911 to January 16, 1913. In 1917, the Millikens sold out to J. N. Atkinson who managed the Jesup Sentinel into the 1920s. The paper experienced several ownership changes in the following decades but eventually became the Press-Sentinel, which continues to circulate today as Wayne County’s paper of record.