The origins of the newspaper now known as the Fulton County Expositor began in the early 1850s in the community of Ottokee. Ottokee, Ohio was the county seat at the time and the name of the paper was the Northwestern Review. When Wauseon became the county seat in the 1860s the Northwest Review moved from rural Ottokee into downtown Wauseon. It competed against another newspaper called the Wauseon Republican and in the late 1890s the two papers merged, becoming the Republican. About that same time, another newspaper, the Fulton County Expositor, started up in Wauseon. For the next six decades the Republican and the Fulton County Expositor newspapers competed. In the late 1950s the two publishers decided to work together and with a joint staff, they published the Republican on Tuesdays and the Expositor on Thursdays. In 1982 both papers came under new ownership and at that time the owners dropped the name plate Republican and both editions became the Fulton County Expositor.
In 2011 the newspaper moved out of its long time office building in downtown Wauseon to the current location on Shoop Avenue.
