Williams provides historic photos and information for this User's Guide

We are indebted to former Petersburg Press and Wrangell Sentinel publisher Lew Williams, Jr. for providing stories, photos and information about both Petersburg and Wrangell newspapers.

In addition to providing historic photos, Williams also provided entire chapters of a book he updated and edited, "Bent Pins to Chains; Alaska and its Newspapers."

In the mid-1970s historian and author Evangeline Atwood was urged by Fairbanks Daily News-Miner executive Charles Gray and Ketchikan Daily News Publisher Lew Williams, Jr. to write a history of Alaska newspapers. She completed a manuscript, "A History of One Hundred Years of Newspapering in Alaska, 1885 – 1985," but died of cancer in 1987 before it could be published.

She gave copies of her manuscript to Williams, Gray and her husband, Anchorage Times Publisher Robert B. Atwood. She asked Williams to edit it and have it published.

After retiring as a Ketchikan newspaper publisher, Williams began updating Mrs. Atwood's manuscript, resulting in an expanded archive copy. That copy is with her original manuscript in various archives. The book "Broken Pins to Chains," is developed from that updated copy.

Williams began his newspaper career in 1936 as a carrier for the Daily Alaska Empire in Juneau. He later operated newspapers with his wife, Dorothy, in Petersburg, Wrangell, Sitka and Ketchikan, where they retired in the 1990s.