For a short time Reefton, with a population of just 2000 and a circulation area of 4648, was home to three competing daily papers: the third, the "Reefton Guardian," was first published in 1888, and was bought out by the "Inangahua Times" in 1894. All three papers were served for more than fifty years by the compositor, editor, and publisher James Noble, who started at the "Guardian" and eventually became editor and publisher of the "Times". The "Herald" succumbed to the Depression in 1936 and merged with the "Times" in 1936. After James Noble the "Times" was run by Ernest Nicholson until it ceased publication on 6 June 1942, a casualty of war shortages. It was revived in 1946 by Reefton's Presbyterian minister Rev. C. R. (Bob) Sprackett as the "Inangahua-Murchison Times", printed in Greymouth, which survived as a weekly until 1956.