William Edmund Scripps was an American pioneer aviator and the publisher, who worked almost 56 years at the Detroit News.
Background
William Edmund was born on May 6, 1882 in Detroit, Michigan, United States, the son of James Edmund Scripps, a newspaper entrepreneur, and Harriet Josephine Messinger Scripps. He spent his entire life in the Detroit area.
His father had founded the Detroit Evening News in 1873, but the financial panic that soon struck forced him to rely on family resources; fifty shares of stock were distributed in 1877 among four brothers and one sister, thus ensuring family control of the enterprise.
Education
William Edmund Scripps briefly attended a local military school of Detroit.
Career
At the age of fourteen William Scripps joined the Detroit Evening News staff. He first distinguished himself at the News by noticing that the chronic malfunction of a new and expensive piece of equipment had resulted from a simple installation error. Never comfortable in the news department, he tended to spend his working hours in the press rooms. When his father retired as publisher, around 1904, Scripps deferred to his brother-in-law George G. Booth as successor while he himself happily pursued interests in internal-combustion engines and experiments in communications techniques.
Since the News was a prosperous enterprise, Scripps could afford to indulge his taste for innovations. In 1912 he owned the first private airplane flown in Michigan and later began to use airplanes to deliver the News to remote Michigan communities. In 1919, at Scripps's behest, the News offered a prize for an airplane flight from Detroit to Atlantic City, and from 1922 to 1933 he was a sponsor of the National Air Races held in Detroit.
Scripps also took an early interest in motorboating and through the Scripps Motor Company developed a successful marine engine that was tested in a transatlantic crossing by a thirty-five-foot vessel. His venture in automobiles, with the Scripps-Booth Motor Car Company, was less successful.
Scripps became a radio enthusiast in 1901, when he and his father witnessed an experimental broadcast of wireless telegraphy in downtown Detroit that sent a message across two city blocks. After World War I he encouraged further experiments in radio communication and was said to have aided Lee de Forest's research with the vacuum tube. Scripps subsequently established station 8MK (later WWJ). Later its sister station, WWJ-TV, was the first commercial television outlet in Michigan.
During the 1930's, after he became publisher of the News, he applied a light editorial touch, leaving the news editors in total charge of the newspaper's content. He served during World War II on the St. Lawrence Seaway-for-Defense committee, although he disdained politics.
After radio and aviation became commonplace, he turned his interests toward agriculture, animal husbandry, and reforestation. His farm, Wildwood, in Oakland County, Michigan, became a showplace of diversified farming, most noted for its Aberdeen-Angus herds. He also undertook a personal wildlife preservation program, increasing Wildwood from 600 to 3, 830 acres and turning a portion of the estate into a game refuge. He also built a miniature railroad to carry visitors through the Detroit zoo, made large gifts to the Trinity Episcopal Church of Detroit.
He died on his farm, leaving his town residence to a Catholic sisterhood which converted it into the St. Mary's Residence for Girls.
Achievements
William Edmund Scripps was one of the first private owners of an autogyro, he promoted aviation through his father's newspaper, The Detroit News, which he helped run. He founded station 8MK (later WWJ), which was the first newspaper-owned broadcasting station. Later its sister station, WWJ-TV, was founded by him as the first commercial television outlet in Michigan. He built a country school in Oakland County that became a construction model for rural education.
Among his many charities was the gift of his private art collection to the city of Detroit and his home which later became the Saint Mary's Residence for Girls; operated by the Daughters of Divine Charity.
Personality
Scripps had no great journalistic talents but possessed a keen perception of engines and industrial machinery. Scripps's associates considered him a self-effacing, almost shy man.
Connections
In 1901 Scripps married Nina Downey. They had four children.
