The Arkansas owner of the Chattanooga Times Free Press said the newspaper will drop its print editions by next June - except for Sundays.
Walter Hussman Jr. said ipads would be provided to all home-delivery subscribers and agents from the paper would teach readers how to use it.
He said a similar conversion had taken place at newspapers he owns in Arkansas.
Mr. Hussman called it "a way to perpetuate the newspaper well into the 21st century."
The Times has been publishing in Chattanooga since 1869 and the News-Free Press since 1936.
Newspapers here started digital editions in 1999 after the merger of the morning and afternoon newspapers.