Local History
Texas Early Newspaper Historical Markers: The Papers That Shaped Public Opinion
Texas editors printed on wallpaper during the Civil War. A future governor started his first paper at 20 years old. Five historical markers trace the state's frontier press, from San Augustine to Grapevine.
Photo: Declan Sun / Unsplash. A vintage wooden printing press, the kind that carried news across frontier Texas.
You drive past the building every time you cut through downtown San Augustine. Brick storefront, quiet street, nothing that asks you to slow down. A marker on that block records the office of a newspaper that helped run the Republic of Texas. Texas has more than 16,000 official historical markers, and a surprising number of them stand where a printing press used to sit. RoadHistorical is a Texas historical preservation platform that tells you when you're about to pass one. This article covers five markers. They trace the Texas press from the Republic years to a small-town weekly that stayed in one family for 80 years.
The Republic Paper That Ran on Borrowed Equipment
Site of the "Red Lander" Office stands in San Augustine, and it marks one of the loudest voices of 1840s Texas.
W. W. Parker bought the equipment of the "Texas Chronicle" in Galveston and hauled it here in 1837. He published the "Red Lander" for three years. John S. "Rip" Ford worked on the staff before he made his name as a Texas Ranger and a Confederate officer. Most people know Ford for the fighting. He learned to write first.
Alanson W. Canfield bought the paper on June 12, 1840. He ran it as a comprehensive weekly with wide circulation until 1853. Papers in larger cities gained prestige as Texas grew, and the "Red Lander" shut down in 1861.
129 E. Columbia, San Augustine, TX
Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
When Texas Editors Printed on Wallpaper
Texas Newspapers, C.S.A. in Austin records what the Civil War did to the state's press. The numbers are brutal.
Texas had 82 newspapers when the war started, with a combined circulation around 100,000. By early 1862 fewer than 20 were still running. Some newspapermen closed shop and enlisted the moment the war began. Others quit because they ran out of ink and paper, which only reached Texas through Mexico or past the Gulf blockade.
A good prewar paper ran four pages of five columns. Wartime issues shrank to half a page. Editors printed on bill forms, wallpaper, tissue, straw paper, and brown wrapping paper. Citizens mixed ink substitutes at home in very small quantities.
Getting news was harder than printing it. Editors copied months-old letters and clippings carried in by soldiers and blockade runners. The "State Gazette" in Austin kept a pony express rider at the Brenham railhead. That got Houston papers into Austin only 18 hours old. The Houston "Telegraph" and the Galveston "News" split the cost of a courier to Virginia and back. He slipped family and Confederate mail through Federal lines on the same trip.
8800 Business Park Dr., Austin, TX
Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Two Editors Who Became Something Bigger
Site of James S. Hogg Newspaper sits in downtown Longview. Hogg founded his first paper here in 1871, the Longview News. He was 20 years old.
He used it hard. Hogg pushed for better schools and better government in Longview. He campaigned against radical reconstruction policies, against railroad subsidies, and against lawlessness. He published for three years. Two decades later he became the first native-born governor of Texas and served from 1891 to 1895. The plaque credits the newspaper years with building the leadership that got him there.
James W. Latimer has a marker in downtown Dallas. Latimer moved to Texas with his family in 1833 and founded the first newspaper in Dallas in 1849. He called it "The Cedar Snag" at first, then renamed it the "Dallas Herald." The "Dallas Morning News" absorbed that paper in 1885. The line from Latimer's press runs straight into a paper Texans still read.
View the Latimer marker location on Google Maps
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Eighty Years, One Family, One Weekly
The Grapevine Sun marker stands on South Main Street in Grapevine. Benjamin R. Wall started the paper in 1895 when he was nineteen.
He sold it in 1897 to James E. Keeling, a native of England. Keeling's son Ed took over as editor in 1912 and published the paper with the help of his wife Grady. The weekly ran mostly encouraging news for its readers, which was a deliberate editorial choice and a rare one.
Ed died in 1953. His daughter Zena Keeling Oxford became editor and her husband Gene set the type. The family sold the Sun after her death in 1976. Three generations, 80 years, one weekly paper.
332 S. Main St., Grapevine, TX
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How RoadHistorical Finds These Markers
Newspaper markers are easy to miss. They sit on working downtown blocks, often on a wall you'd walk past on the way to lunch. Discovery Mode solves that. The app watches your location as you drive and tells you when a marker is coming up. You get the chance to pull over instead of finding out about it later.
The AI Tour Guide handles the questions the plaque leaves open. Ask who Rip Ford was, or what a pony express railhead relay looked like. You get the answer standing at the marker, not after you get home. Offline mode keeps all of it working in the parts of East and West Texas where your bars disappear.
Start Discovering Texas History Today
RoadHistorical is free to download on iPhone and Android. Download it here and turn on Discovery Mode before your next drive. Android users can download RoadHistorical from Google Play.
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