When the first copy of the Examiner rolled off the press it was a steamy Friday afternoon on November 26, 1893, and the masthead read The Gloucester Examiner and Lower Hunter Advertiser - it cost a penny.

William Brown and Geo S. Hill formed a partnership to start the paper and began publishing at 21 King Street - now the premises of Terrace Quilting.

But what most readers probably do not know is that Raymond Terrace had been serviced by another newspaper for nine years before Mr Brown and Mr Hill started their venture.

Henry Courtney started a paper in Raymond Terrace in 1884 called the Gloucester Gazette and Lower Hunter and Williams River Advocate.

He operated from the old post and telegraph office building on the Hunter River and there was also talk that Mr Courtney may have first published the paper from a large shed on the river.

Both papers used Gloucester in the title because they were circulated in the NSW seat of Gloucester.

All trade from the north of Gloucester to the coast at Forster almost always came through Raymond Terrace on its way to Sydney by steamer. Mr Brown and Mr Hill started the Examiner after the town was left without a newspaper when Mr Courtney moved away from the area and stopped production. No copies of the Gazette are known to exist today. In 1901 the Examiner moved to new premises at 26 King Street, almost immediately opposite the first building, and stayed there until 1919.

The building today is not occupied, but it has previously been a hairdressers and after that the Senior Citizens Hall before the new building at Boomerang Park was constructed.

A shortage of room and recurring flooding issues in King Street forced the move to William Street, which many residents will remember it operating from.

Not much is known about the Examiner's William Street site, but some believe it was the site of a blacksmith's shop and other rumours are that it is positioned over an old well.

When the Australian Agriculture Company sold its land around Gloucester and a syndicate subdivided the land, the town took off and Brown decided to change the name of his paper to the Raymond Terrace Examiner to avoid confusion with the newly established Gloucester Advocate, this was in 1912. The Examiner called 10 William Street home for 93 years, leaving the premises at the end of 2011 with all staff operating out of its Nelson Bay premises for two months.

In February 2012, the Examiner office reopened in Raymond Terrace on the corner of William Street and Port Stephens Street, almost directly opposite the road from the old building, and this is where you will find us today.