Kingsport Publishing Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sandusky Newspapers, Inc., which aquired the Kingsport newspaper in 1962

The parent corporation has its roots in the Sandusky (Ohio) Register which has been owned by the same family for more than a century. The Register was purchased in 1869 by Issac Foster Mack, who began his career as a correspondent in Washington for several Chicago dailies. Educated in Wisconsin and at Oberlin College, Mack served in the Civil War. He was captured by Confederate soldiers after the battle of Cross Lanes, Virginia in August 1861. After an escape and subsequent recapture, Mack was shuttled from one Confederate prison to another until he was released almost two years later. Mack left the war a colonel and returned to Oberlin where he received two degrees.

Mack's attempt to buy a Cleveland newspaper failed, so he looked west. He purchased the Sandusky Register, then the Sandusky Daily Commercial Register, a newspaper of limited local circulation. He weilded a sharp and prolific pen, editorializing on local, state and national issues, taking stands that eventually earned him a national reputation. He was the newspaper's editor for four decades.

In 1909, Mack withdrew from active participation in the newspaper, which was then incorporated under the name of The Register Publishing Company. John Mack, his younger brother, became publisher as well as the newspaper's editor until his death in 1914.