Sun Sets on Unique Sunday Newspaper : Journalism: Rhode Island paper converts to morning publication today. It is the only paper in the country that got the Pearl Harbor attack in its regular edition, but it had to alter history by one minute.

The nation’s only Sunday afternoon newspaper--and the only paper in the country that got word of the attack on Pearl Harbor into its regular edition--converts to mornings this weekend.

More than a century of tradition will end when press time for The Westerly Sun is pushed from 11 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. today. Its Monday-through-Friday editions will still be printed in the afternoon.

Publisher William Sherman said a survey found a “strong feeling toward a morning paper on Sunday.”

George H. Utter, a former governor and congressman, was The Sun of Westerly’s first publisher and the reason it was published Sunday afternoons. He was a Seventh-day Baptist,observing the Sabbath from sunset Friday to sunrise Sunday.

The Sun, with a circulation of about 12,500, was first published in 1893.

On Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, Publisher George B. Utter stopped the presses to get the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the front page. But there was one problem: There were only two 2s in the lead print type used for the headline.

So while the attack occurred at 2:22 p.m. EST, the Sun reported it as 2:23 p.m. in its headline. With history altered by a minute, the Sun got the story in its regular Sunday edition.

There was one time when the paper almost came out on a Saturday. That was Sept. 7, 1901, said Charles Utter, who with his brother, George H. II, published the paper until 1991.

“President (William) McKinley was shot on a Friday night,” he said. “By that time it was getting dark early, and the Sabbath begins Friday night at sundown. Well, the superintendent of the shop decided to get a Friday night extra out because the President was shot.

“My grandfather came by and found the doors open and it infuriated him that this was going on during the Sabbath. He fired everyone in the building--just outright fired them. Of course the next day he hired them back because he had a paper to get out.”