Texas Almanac, 1939-1940 Page: 18
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Story of
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Oldest Business Institution in Texas
And Associated Enterprises-The Semi-Weekly Farm News, the Texas Almanac
and State Industrial Guide, and Radio Station WFAAEstablished under the Lone Star flag
of the Republic of Texas, the company
which publishes The Dallas Morning
News is the oldest business institution in
Texas. It was on April 11, 1842, under
the second administration of President
Sam Houston, that the first issue of the
four-page, 10x13-inch daily came from
a little hand press in a pine shack on the
Strand in Galveston, hopeful port city
of the Republic, having then about 1,500
population.
Economic conditions in the struggling
Republic were conducive to a high mor-
tality rate among newspapers, but the
little Galveston newspaper persisted.
From the beginning it had attained rec-
ognition for its virile editorial policy. It
was a stanch supporter of President Mi-
rabeau B. Lamar and his advocacy of an
educational system. Its first maJor cru-
sade was for the annexation of Texas.
During the Mexican War it achieved the
first of what has become a long list of
journalistic accomplishments, by pub-
lishing dispatches from the battle front.
When Galveston was captured by Fed-
eral forces during the Civil War The
Galveston News moved to Houston
where an additional tragedy in the de-struction of its printing plant by fire
proved only a temporary setback. With
the close of the war it returned to Gal-
veston and became a leader in the cam-
paign against carpetbag rule.
The first issue of The Galveston News
came from the press in Galveston, about
five months after John Neely Bryan,
first settler of Dallas, built his log cabin
on the bank of the Trinity. After the
Civil War the publishers of The News
soon realized that the Blackland Belt of
north and central Texas was rapidly be-
coming the nucleus of a great upstate
economic development. After a careful
survey they picked Dallas as a logical
location and established The Dallas
Morning News, the first issue coming
from the press Oct. 1, 1885. Connected
by a private wire, simultaneous publica-
tion of the sister dailies elicited wide-
spread comment from the metropolitan
press of the United States at that time.
This was another on the long list of
journalistic achievements to the credit
of the continuing enterprise of the pub-
lishers of The News.
For more than fifty-three years The
Dallas News has had a foremost place
in the growth of Dallas from a frontier
hamlet to its present rank as a regionalApproximately 600 employees work in the plant of The Dallas Morning News shown
above. The entire floor space of the building, totaling nearly two acres, is devoted to
production of The News and its two associated publications.
18
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Texas Almanac, 1939-1940, book, 1939; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117163/m1/20/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.