The Daily Monitor Leader Archive 

The Daily Monitor Leader traces its history back to 1864 with the publication of the Macomb County monitor. In 1888 the paper became the Mt. Clemens Monitor. In 1923 three brothers, Mark, Paul, and Max McKee purchased the newspaper.

The late 1930s and early 1940s saw a rapid evolution among the newspapers in the area. The McKee brothers, particularly Mark and Paul, sensed an opportunity and began to acquire many area newspapers. Among the changes they instigated, in 1936, the Mt. Clemens Monitor changed its name to The Advertiser-Monitor. In 1940 the Advertiser-Monitor merged with the Mount Clemens Advertiser, which had begun publishing in 1935, to become The Daily Monitor. In 1942 or 1943 the Daily Monitor merged with The Mt. Clemens Daily Leader to become the Daily Monitor Leader.

The Mt. Clemens Daily Leader had been founded in 1901 by Samuel Cheney Price. He died in 1913, and his widow, Frances Norton Price, and ultimately their son, Samuel Norton Price (born July 18, 1896), continued operating the paper. In the early 1940s control of the paper passed out of the Price family, when it was purchased by the McKee brothers to be consolidated with the Daily Monitor Paul White McKee served as publisher until his death in 1964. His nephew, Mark Thompson McKee briefly succeeded him as the paper editor, but the paper was purchased in that same year by Panax Corporation and merged with others to form The Macomb Daily. Maury Vincent became the new paper's first editor.