Two newspapers of general circulation in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
(
USA
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
) have operated under the name ''Dallas Herald''.
First ''Dallas Herald'' (1849-1885)
The first permanent settler of Dallas,
John Neely Bryan, settled there in 1841. The first local newspaper appeared in 1849, when James Wellington Latimer (known as “Weck,” “Wake,” and “Mark”) established a weekly newspaper, the ''Dallas Herald''. Latimer and William Wallace had purchased the ''Texas Times'', published in
Paris, Texas
Paris is a city and county seat of Lamar County, Texas, United States. Located in Northeast Texas at the western edge of the Piney Woods, the population of the city was 24,171 in 2020.
History
Present-day Lamar County was part of Red River ...
, and moved it to Dallas to become the ''Herald''. The first few issues may have appeared under the name the ''Cedar Snag'', but the nameplate read ''Dallas Herald'' by December 1849.
Latimer became sole owner and
editor when Wallace retired in 1850. John W. Swindells became part owner in 1854 and sole owner when Latimer died in 1859. It appears that J. L. Bartow acquired the publishing company in March 1877. In 1879 P. S. Pfouts, J. E. Elliott, and W. L. Hall acquired the company.
The paper was renamed the ''Dallas Weekly Herald'' in 1873. In 1874 the owners began a second publication, the ''Dallas Daily Herald'', which appeared daily except Monday.
The
''Dallas Morning News'' began publication on October 1, 1885 and later that year acquired the ''Weekly Herald'' and the ''Daily Herald'', both of which ceased publication on December 8, 1885. Although most accounts of the demise of the ''Herald'' papers state or imply that the ''Morning News'' purchased the papers and closed them, contemporary accounts published in the ''Morning News'' could be read to say that the ''Herald'' owners decided to invest in the ''Morning News'' and to close their papers rather than selling them to new owners. The announcement in the ''Morning News'' said in part:
In any event, demise of the ''Herald'' newspapers removed the most serious competition of the ''Morning News'' and allowed it to acquire the
Western Associated Press franchise held by the ''Herald''.
The ''Herald'' under Latimer supported the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
,
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
, transportation improvements, and education and opposed
Sam Houston. It urged Democrats to select the moderate
Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen Arnold Douglas (April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. A senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party for president in the 1860 presidential election, which wa ...
as the party’s 1860 presidential nominee, rather than a more extreme Southern partisan because Douglas probably could be elected and would listen to the concerns of the
southern states where a less moderate candidate would not likely be elected. When the
Ku Klux Klan appeared in Dallas soon after the end of the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, the ''Herald'' strongly condemned "the ignorant and superstitious members
f the Klanthreatening violence and revolution."
Second ''Dallas Herald'' (1886-1888)
The ''Herald'' papers had been missing from the Dallas scene for barely more than a month when an item appeared in the ''Morning News'' on January 14, 1886 noting that “the first number of the Dallas Daily Herald made its appearance last evening. It is a crisp, bright paper of twenty-eight columns, in a nice new dress . . . .” Meanwhile, the ''Morning News'' continued running daily notices from Herald Publishing Company and
A. H. Belo & Co. (publishers of the ''Morning News''), dated November 30, 1885, to the effect that the ''Herald'' had turned over its subscription list to the ''Morning News'' and that the ''Morning News'' would fulfill those subscriptions with its own editions and solicited former ''Herald'' subscribers to become ''Morning News'' subscribers. These notices did not cease until early April.
M. H. Claytor operated this ''Herald'' for a few months. Claytor had been manager of the ''San Antonio Evening Times'' and in his ''Herald'' editorials often advocated for
prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...
. On June 7, 1886 it was acquired b
Lafayette Lumpkin Foster a journalist and then speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.
Foster was joined that fall by Charles Edwin Gilbert, secretary of the Texas Press Association and editor of the ''
Abilene Reporter
''Abilene Reporter-News'' is a daily newspaper based in Abilene, Texas, United States. The newspaper started publishing as the weekly ''Abilene Reporter'', helmed by Charles Edwin Gilbert on June 17, 1881, just three months after Abilene was f ...
'' in
Abilene, Texas.
Abilene Reporter-News
/ref> Gilbert's ''Herald'' differed from its major competitor, the ''Morning News'', by sometimes publishing one or more extra editions to report important news and in its appearance: while the ''Morning News'' was producing pages of solid gray type broken only by advertising, the ''Herald'' used wider columns and broke up its columns with small illustrations. Gilbert also was a prohibitionist and would not accept advertising for beer or other alcohol.
The paper lasted through the next year but merged with the ''Dallas Times
The ''Dallas Times'' was an afternoon newspaper published in Dallas, Texas (USA) from 1876 until it merged with the '' Dallas Herald'' in 1888 to form the ''Daily Times Herald''.
William G. Sterett, who had been in Dallas a short while and had b ...
'' to form the ''Daily Times-Herald'', which began publication on January 2, 1888 and which eventually was renamed the '' Dallas Times Herald'' and dropped the hyphen.
References
*The News and the Herald. ''Dallas Morning News'', November 30, 1885, p. 1.
*The Herald’s Valedictory. ''Dallas Morning News'', November 30, 1885, p. 4.
*The Daily Herald. ''Dallas Morning News'', January 14, 1886, p. 2.
*The Herald: It Passed Into the Hands of Speaker Foster Yesterday. ''Dallas Morning News'', June 8, 1886, p. 8.
*Cox, Patrick. ''The First Texas News Barons'', pp. 74–75. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005. .
*Rogers, John William. ''The Lusty Texans of Dallas'', ch. XV. New York: Dutton, 1960.
*''The WPA Dallas Guide and History''. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1992. .
External links
"Dallas Herald"
hosted by th
Portal to Texas History
*
*
*{{Handbook of Texas, id=eed13, name=Dallas Times-Herald
Defunct newspapers of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex