The Columbia Banner (Magnolia, Columbia County, Ark.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,393 issues from 1878 to 1914, published in Magnolia, Arkansas, digitised for Chronicling America.
Columbia County, which borders Louisiana in southwestern Arkansas, was created in 1852. Magnolia was established in 1853 to serve as the Columbia County seat in the center of the county. By the 1900s, Magnolia had a railroad stop, which spurred the growth of the local lumber and orchard industries. In 1909, the Third District Agricultural School opened in town, which is now Southern Arkansas University (SAU). In the 1920s, oil discoveries in the area sparked growth in Magnolia and buffered the town through the Great Depression. Though several newspapers opened in Magnolia within a decade of its establishment, all were short lived until the Columbia Banner.
In 1878, John Canady Jordan founded the Columbia Banner, a Democratic, 4-page weekly paper, in Magnolia under his Jordan and Company business. His print office was located under the county courthouse. Jordan published the first issue of the Banner a few days before his nineteenth birthday. Less than a year later, in 1879, Jordan sold the Banner to Reuben Loggins Emerson and Company, and Emerson built a two-story building to house the newspaper plant.
Emerson was a recent resident of Magnolia, having moved to town earlier in 1879 after living elsewhere in Columbia County. Emerson remained in Magnolia and owned the Banner for the rest of his life, keeping the paper running among his many other ventures. Emerson was one of the largest landowners in Columbia County, a successful merchant, real estate agent, and teacher; he…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Magnolia, Arkansas, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress