Long before the internet, Nick’s News was where Huntingtonians went to get their national news, magazines and more.
By James E. Casto
HQ 133 | Spring 2026
These days, thanks to the internet, if you want to see today’s edition of your favorite out-of-town newspaper, it’s a simple matter to call it up on your computer screen.
But before the advent of the internet, you had to wait for copies to be delivered to your local newsstand — a wait that sometimes could stretch for days. For years, outside racks in front of Nick’s News at 433 Ninth St., across the street from the city’s old Carnegie Library, offered newspapers for sale from a dozen or more of the nation’s big cities, all shipped to Huntington each day aboard the C&O’s George Washington and its other passenger trains. The shop, established by Nick Aborizk and his wife Hazel, also sold greeting cards, magazines, comic books, paperback books, candy, snacks, cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and an almost endless list of other things.
“Nick’s News was Google for me long before the internet was created,” noted former Huntington Mayor Steve Williams.
“When I was playing sports in high school and at Marshall, I would go to Nick’s to get the newspapers from Charleston, Logan, Morgantown, Parkersburg, Beckley and Bluefield. After college, my interests expanded to include finance and politics. I would still go to Nick’s News, but to buy the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. For over 25 years, Nick’s News was my window to the world’s news.”
When Nick Aborizk died, Ernest Tweel and his wife Louise — Hazel Aborizk’s sister — took over the shop. That was in 1947. When the C&O’s passenger trains were discontinued with the 1971 formation of Amtrak, it meant a big change for newsstands such as Nick’s, which had to turn to Greyhound buses for delivery of the newspapers they stocked.
In 1976, construction of the new Cabell County Public Library on the northwest corner of Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue displaced a number of businesses, including Nick’s News, which moved to 805 Fourth Ave. After her husband died, Louise Tweel continued to run the store but eventually sold it.
In 2005, many of the newsstand’s longtime customers were shocked by its sudden closure. Balley’s News Inc., the Parkersburg company that had purchased the store, described the closure as part of a downsizing decision.
