''The Citizen'' was a weekly newspaper published in

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...

Allegany County, Maryland Allegany County is located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 68,106. Its county seat is Cumberland. The name ''Allegany'' may come from a local Lenape word, ''welhik hane'' or '' ...

from November 14, 1961 to October 27, 1983. In addition to Cumberland, ''The Citizen'' also served the nearby cities of Frostburg, Maryland and Oakland, Maryland.

History

''The Citizen'' was first published on November 14, 1961, having been purchased months earlier by

M. Virginia Rosenbaum M. Virginia Rosenbaum (born M. Virginia Fike) (1921–2005) was Maryland's first female county surveyor and a member of the Maryland Society of Surveyors. For a short time she worked as a copy writer and eventually became the manager of WTBO radi ...

, a local county surveyor and Maryland's first female professional surveyor. Rosenbaum purchased ''The'' ''Allegany Citizen'', a local weekly newspaper that had been founded in 1948, and published it under a new name, ''The Allegany Garrett Citizen'', on August 4, 1961. Later that same year, she changed its name again to ''The Citizen'', and the paper continued publication under this name until 1983, when the paper fell under the ownership of Mr. and Mrs. Harry M. Fox. During the years of its publication, ''The Citizen'' gave an independent view of local economic and political happenings. Though the

coal industry Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when de ...

was no longer a major employer in the region, the legacy of the industry remained part of the local identity. Major corporations such as tire manufacturer Kelly Springfield and textile manufacturer American Celanese replaced the hole in the economy left by the disappearing coal industry; later, ''The Citizen'' would document the decline and eventual demise of both companies in the 1980s. Rosenbaum's ''Citizen'' gained notoriety for leading the opposition to adding

fluoride Fluoride (). According to this source, is a possible pronunciation in British English. is an inorganic, monatomic anion of fluorine, with the chemical formula (also written ), whose salts are typically white or colorless. Fluoride salts typ ...

to the local water supply, she successfully headed seven different campaigns to purify Maryland's drinking water.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Citizen, The Defunct newspapers published in Maryland