Ties between the Gaines family and Bowling Green, Kentucky – where they have published local news for the past 140 years – are strong.

A history of the American Civil War tells how the Gaines family, forced leave their bombarded home in 1862, returned to find it occupied by federal soldiers the following day.

So selling the Bowling Green Daily News to Boone Newspapers affiliate Carpenter Newsmedia is not a decision they have taken lightly.

“It was indeed a difficult decision, and it wasn’t one that was made quickly or easily,” says co-owner publisher emeritus Pipes Gaines. “It’s been an incredible legacy, and we look back on it with a lot of pride.

“Over the decades we have put out a quality product that has served our advertisers and readers very well… we didn’t do this by ourselves. The employees who work here now or in the past have had a major part in any success we have had.”

Co-owners with Pipes are sons Scott who is publisher, and Steve who is the paper’s editor. Randy Cope, a director of Cribb, Cope & Potts, which represents them, says the deal is expected to close on June 30.

Boone Newspapers – another family-owned organisation based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama – is buying the Daily News, along with its Country Peddler weekly shopper and three magazines. Boone Newspapers already owns or manages 90 other newspapers and other publications in 12 states, with chairman Jim Boone as controlling shareholder and his wife and children owning all remaining stock.

President and chief executive Todd Carpenter said that Boone “does not take lightly” the standard set by the Gaines family in its many decades of Daily News ownership.

“We are pleased and proud to be chosen by the Gaines family as their successor in responsibility for the newspaper,” he said in a statement. “We take that responsibility very seriously and will work hard to meet our every obligation to the community and to our team members.”

Pipes Gaines said two considerations were very important: choosing a buyer that had the same commitment to quality and strong community journalism; and a buyer “that would treat our coworkers the way we would want them to be treated”.