George Huber established The Hancock News in 1914 and operated the local newspaper until 1947 at a variety of locations in town, from spots along Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. A fire in 1933 destroyed one of those offices, which Huber had just improved and stocked with new type. Employee Susan Bohler said all she salvaged from the fire was a stick.
Bohler started working for The Hancock News in 1921, and bought the weekly paper in 1947 following the death of her former boss. Bohler hand-set the presses, collected weekly news and ads with a small staff of mostly women until her retirement in 1966.
Bohler sold The News to West Virginia publisher James S. Buzzerd, who ran a weekly paper, The Morgan Messenger, across the Potomac River in Berkeley Springs, W.Va. The Buzzerd family still runs both papers, doing layout at their Berkeley Springs office. The papers are printed at the Frederick News-Post in Frederick, Md.
The Hancock News is a member of the Maryland, Delaware, DC Press Association and is considered the state’s smallest weekly paper. It serves readers in Hancock, Berkeley Springs, Fulton County, Pa. and beyond.