Early Days in Fort Worth, Much of Which I saw and Part of Which I Was

by B. B. Paddock

“’Twere long to tell what steeds gave o’er,

As swept the hunt through Campus-more.”

It would be an almost endless task and one the writer will not essay to tell the history of the newspapers of this city. It has been the graveyard of the hopes and aspirations of ambitious men, who without capital, and oft times without experience, have undertaken the work of furnishing an unappreciative public with a newspaper in Fort Worth.

It was on March 7th, 1860, that Fort Worth had its first paper. It was started by a man by the name of Cleveland and was called the Enterprise. How long it continued, and what became of it the writer has been unable the ascertain.

The second attempt was made in October, 1871, when Maj. K. M. VanZandt, John Hanna, W. H. Overton, Capt. Sam Evans and Junius W. Smith bought from Maj. J. J. Jarvis the press and material of a paper at Quitman in Wood county and moved here and started the Fort Worth Democrat. In October, 1872, they sold it to Capt. B. B. Paddock, who assumed management and direction of the paper on the 1st day of January, 1873. He continued the publication until June 30th, 1882, when it was merged with the Live Stock Journal, owned by George B. Loving, and changed to the Fort Worth Gazette, which during its continuance was confessedly the best paper ever printed in this State.

On July 4th, 1876, the Democrat started the first daily paper, coming out as a morning paper on the morning of the Centennial year, unannounced and unheralded, without a single subscriber or a line of advertising. The audacity of the enterprise made a favorable impression on the public-spirited and generous people of the city and they rallied to its support with enthusiasm. But there was neither room nor patronage for a daily morning paper in a city of three thousand people and the patronage, however liberal, would not furnish it with the necessary nourishment and it was a failure financially from start to finish. It was a wide awake and enterprising little sheet, advocating with zeal and enthusiasm every measure that its owner considered for the upbuilding of the city.

In 1873 the Fort Worth Standard made its bow to the public. It was owned and managed by Mr. J. K. Millican who is still a resident of the city. It was followed during the same summer by the Epitomist, established by Will H. Lawrence, who came from Kansas. The panic of 1873 sent it to the happy hunting grounds. On its demise the associate editor, L. R. Brown, better known at that time as “High-toned Brown” leased the material and started The Post, which lasted about three weeks. The public realized that there was not room for two papers, much less three, and failed to accord it any patronage.

The Standard lasted for several years. Soon after the Democrat started its daily, the Standard essayed the same, publishing an evening paper. But it could not find the necessary support and finally succumbed to the inevitable.

The Journal, Mirror, Star, Mail, Tribune, News and many other papers came and went down in the years that followed with rapid succession. The experience of one seemed to have no effect on the ambitions of the men who knew how to run a paper.

In the Spring of 1884 Capt. Paddock sold his interest in the Gazette to Mr. Loving and retired from active newspaper work, although he was interested several times in the property in a financial way.