The First Edition
and Charles Edwin Gilbert
 The first edition of Abilene's first newspaper,
The Abilene Reporter, was published June 17, 1881, three
months and two days after the village was established at a town
lot auction.
The newspaper, known now as The
Abilene Reporter-News, has been in operation since, making
it the oldest business concern in Abilene.
The newspaper shared the town's
earliest development. Early editors coaxed Abilenians to install
board sidewalks to keep townsmen out of the mud. An early editor
waged a holy war against prairie dogs, declaring, "The press
is going to tackle this evil."
The newspaper, through its editorial
leadership, has had much to do with the development of West Central
Texas. Later editors have crusaded for public parks, for industrial
development, more adequate water supplies and downtown renovation.
The newspaper was established
by Charles Edwin Gilbert, a native of Alabama who came to Texas
in 1876 at age 21. He went first to Navasota where for five years
he published The Navasota Tablet. That paper prospered, but Gilbert's
attention was caught by the advertising campaign the Texas and
Pacific Railroad was waging for a new town it was sponsoring
in West Texas, Abilene, a town the railroad was billing as the
"Future Great city of West Texas."
Gilbert sold his paper, packed
up his family and moved west, arriving in Abilene in the late
spring of 1881, possibly in May after the March 15 sale of town
lots. He rented a three-room shanty for his family and pitched
a tent on South First between Oak and Chestnut to house his operation
while a frame structure, Abilene's first newspaper plant, was
being built.
 Gilbert
purchased from a defunct Buffalo Gap newspaper, The Texas
Eagle, a half-wagon load of equipment, including a "shirttail
full of type," some cases and cabinets and a small, one-page
George Washington press. (The press was the same model, if not
the identical machine, as the old "G. Wash." press
The Reporter-News has on display in its lobby museum).
The first issue of Gilbert's
newspaper, a weekly he called The Abilene Reporter, was
printed at his tent location.
NEXT: Typhoid
fever and The Great Fire
(Abridged from Katharyn Duff's
April 19, 1981 "The Story of a Prairie Newspaper" You
can buy this book online from credit card-secured site shopARN.com.)
(Click on links below
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 Online Rate Card (PDF)
Our media profile (PDF - includes all
pages below)
About Reporter Publishing (PDF)
AR-N Daily Features (PDF)
AR-N Daily Sections (PDF)
Products and Services (PDF)
Dyess PeaceMaker (PDF)
The Money Clip (PDF)
ReporterNews.Com (PDF)
Targeted Sections (PDF)
AR-N Circulation (PDF)
AR-N Readership by Age, Income (PDF)
Abilene Employment (PDF)
Abilene Market Profile (PDF)
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