Webster “Web” Woodmansee, who led The Daily Reporter for nearly 60 years, died Dec. 1, 2000, in Milwaukee. He was 87.
Woodmansee attended UW-Madison, where he met his wife, Winifred Rogers. He later earned his law degree at Northwestern University.
Woodmansee joined his father in publishing The Daily Reporter in 1935, putting aside a law practice in trusts and estates in favor of hot type, newsprint and public notices.
His father, J.F. Woodmansee, had taken over the paper from its founders in 1903, building The Daily Reporter’s role in the community as the provider of public notice and other essential public and government information. Over the years, The Daily Reporter became the statewide leader in providing public notice and publishing detailed accounts of public and government activities, from new lawsuit and bankruptcy filings to property transactions and construction bidding information.
The newspaper converted from hot type to computerized typesetting methods in 1986, one of the last newspapers in the state to make that conversion. The Woodmansee family sold The Daily Reporter to Dolan Media Company in 1994.
