Washington Telegraph (Washington, Ark.) 18??-1940
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
647 issues from 1892 to 1927, published in Washington, Arkansas, digitised for Chronicling America.
Washington, in southwestern Arkansas, was the first Hempstead County seat. During the Civil War, Washington became Arkansas’s Confederate capital in 1863 after Little Rock was taken by Union forces. When railroads were built in the county, they bypassed Washington and instead stopped at a nearby railroad station, which grew into the new town of Hope. In 1939, Hope replaced Washington as the Hempstead County seat.
In 1839, William Henry Etter founded the Washington Telegraph. The previous year, Etter had moved to Washington from Pennsylvania, bringing a “meager” printing press with him. The Telegraph was the first Arkansas paper published southwest of Little Rock. At that time, Washington had a population of about 400, and there were only five post offices in Hempstead County. For the first several years, the Telegraph was politically independent, but it later supported and was influential in the Whig Party. Once the Whig party disintegrated in the 1850s, it became a Democratic paper. One famous citizen in Washington was recognized by the Telegraph in 1841. The paper reported that more than a decade before, local blacksmith James Black made the first bowie knife used by James Bowie. The Etter family was involved in the publication of the Telegraph throughout its 100-year run, bringing on many editors and managers over the years.
John Rogers Eakin was a lawyer and editor of the Telegraph in the leadup to and during the Civil War. Wyatt C. Thomas, an eccentric character,…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Washington, 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