Bernard "Barney" Kilgore, 1908-1967

Bernard "Barney" Kilgore was born Nov. 9, 1908, in Albany, Indiana. He attended DePauw University, and received his bachelor's degree in political science in 1929. After three years as a copy editor, news editor and reporter in San Francisco, he joined the Wall Street Journal in 1932 as the editorial page editor. When he died in 1967, he was Chairman of Dow Jones & Company.

In 1938, he married Mary Louise Throop. They had three children, Kathryn, James Bernard and John Harvey.

Bernard Kilgore is credited as the visionary who made The Wall Street Journal into a national newspaper. During his tenure the newspaper expanded its coverage, grew its circulation and developed technology to deliver the same news and editorial content to readers no matter where in the United States they were.

At age 25, Barney Kilgore wrote the first "What's News" column while working in the Washington bureau. He also started the "Washington Wire" feature of the paper and was the architect behind The Wall Street Journal's Page One format.

At a gala honoring his 25 years at the Wall Street Journal, Warren H. Phillips, chairman of Dow Jones & Company at the time said of him, "Nobody was writing those stories in those days. He didn't just revolutionize The Wall Street Journal, he revolutionized the newspaper business. Today we take it for granted when other newspapers write about currents in society that have nothing to do with what happened yesterday."

In addition to his work at the Wall Street Journal, Bernard Kilgore purchased The Princeton Packet, the oldest weekly newspaper in New Jersey in 1955. James Kilgore, his son, is publisher of The Princeton Packet Newspapers. In 1958, he established The Newspaper Fund, a program to encourage and develop talent for journalism through internships and scholarships for students attending liberal arts colleges, and to provide summer workshops for high school teachers to learn about student publications. In 1962, he started the National Observer, a weekly national newspaper.

When he died on Nov. 14, 1967, his photo was the first ever to run in the Wall Street Journal.