Newspapers are the eyes and ears of the world; they are how the world comes to know about itself.

In Lake Charles, those eyes and ears are the American Press, which is celebrating its 127th birthday today.

The oldest member of the Southwest Louisiana Chamber of Commerce, the newspaper’s earliest roots can be traced to August of 1893 when Joseph F. Reed created a weekly publication in Lake Charles. He would form a partnership with Guy Beatty the next year, creating Press Publishing Co. In that partnership, Reed oversaw the editorial department of the publication and Beatty handled business management.

Two years later, on Feb. 4, 1895, the Weekly Press became the Daily Press and the organization purchased a new printing press.

“With the exception of the large publishing houses of New Orleans, there is nowhere, in all the state of Louisiana, or the adjacent South, a printing establishment that will compare, in point of costly and efficient equipment, with the plant of the daily and weekly Press,” reads an 1895 article in the Lake Charles Daily Press announcing the purchase. “There is no other in service, propelled by a large ‘Hercules’ gas engine, one Cotrel J. & Son’s best make of newspaper presses, to which is attached a Bennett folder delivering the sheet printed, pasted and folded.”

The article said the design of the then-afternoon edition was complete at 3 p.m. each day and by 4 p.m. the carriers started making their deliveries.

In 1910, the Daily Press merged with the Daily American, which Beatty was also publishing at the time, to form the Lake Charles Daily American-Press.

By 1912, the newspaper shortened its name, removing “Daily” and the hyphen from its masthead.

Eight years later, Beatty moved the paper to a brick building on the 300 block of Broad Street — now the location of the Lake Charles Children’s Museum — where it was headquartered for the next 34 years.

It was in the midst of World War II that Thomas B. Shearman Sr., on Dec. 21, 1943, purchased the newspaper, four months after Beatty’s death. Shearman, who was a Chicago-based national advertising salesman at the Inland Newspaper Representatives firm, had represented the Lake Charles American Press in national advertising for about 12 years and had formed a friendship with Beatty.

“After his death, his daughter told me that he had told her that I should be offered the paper,” Shearman recounted in a 1967 article.

Shearman bought the business from Beatty’s heirs for $300,000.

“It shall be my purpose to endeavor to continue the progressive, alert, and friendly type of newspaper which (the previous owners) created here,” Shearman said in a 1943 announcement in the newspaper. “Every effort will be made to keep the American Press close to the people of Southwest Louisiana and a paper that will stand firmly for every sound improvement in the area.

“Investment in the newspaper field in Lake Charles has a double attraction,” he continued. “Already a modern daily in operation, it has one of the brightest futures of any paper in the South because of the prospective growth of this city. It is a city in which it will be a pleasure to make a home, and I shall look forward to moving my family here.”