Arkansas Gazette

Arkansas Gazette

Type	Newspaper
Format	Broadsheet
Founder(s)	William E. Woodruff
Founded	November 20, 1819 (1819-11-20)
Language	English
Ceased publication	October 18, 1991 (1991-10-18)
Headquarters	The Gazette Building 112 West Third Street Little Rock, Arkansas 72201-2702
Country	United States
OCLC number	8794697
Media of the United States List of newspapers

The Arkansas Gazette was a newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, that was published from 1819 to 1991. It was known as the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi River. It was located from 1908 until its closing at the now historic Gazette Building. For many years it was the newspaper of record for Little Rock and the State of Arkansas. It was Arkansas' first newspaper.

History

The Arkansas Gazette began publication at Arkansas Post, the first capital of Arkansas Territory, on November 20, 1819. The Arkansas Gazette was established seventeen years before Arkansas became a state. When the capital was moved to Little Rock in 1821, publisher William E. Woodruff also relocated the Arkansas Gazette. The newspaper was the first to report Arkansas' statehood in 1836.

Arkansas Gazette building

Over the decades the paper was bought and sold many times. During the Civil War the paper was even shut down from the September on 1863 to the May of 1865. After the war the Gazette became the first newspaper to have telegraphic services from which they began to receive news from places like New Orleans, Louisiana, Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri. In 1908 the "Gazette" even added colored comics. During the Little Rock Nine Crisis the "Gazette" promoted the integration of schools which lost them millions of dollars. But in the aftermath the "Gazette" regained its status. In 1958, the "Arkansas Gazette" was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and Harry Ashmore of the "Gazette" was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing for their coverage of the school integration crisis in Little Rock.

Through much of its history, the Gazette was in competition with the Arkansas Democrat. Competition became more intense in 1979 when the Democrat changed from publishing in the evening to publishing in the morning. After 12 years of bitter competition in the morning, the Arkansas Gazette published its final edition on October 18, 1991. The assets of the newspaper were sold to Walter E. Hussman, Jr., owner and publisher of the competing Arkansas Democrat. Hussman renamed the surviving paper the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The surviving newspaper proclaims itself a descendant of the Arkansas Gazette, but this viewpoint is disputed by the 726 full-time and 1,200 part-time employees of the Arkansas Gazette who lost their jobs with the demise of their newspaper, as well as by readers of the "Gazette" who preferred the quality of journalism found in the "Gazette" to that found in the "Arkansas Democrat," even holding a vigil for its demise.

See also

• List of newspapers in Arkansas

Further reading

• Donna Lampkin Stephens (2012). "Conscience of the Arkansas Gazette". Journalism History. 38.
• Dougan, Michael B (1994). Arkansas Odyssey, The Saga of Arkansas from Prehistoric Times to Present. Little Rock: Rose Publishing Co. ISBN 0-914546-65-1.
• Jessie Ryon Lucke (1955). "Correspondence concerning the Establishment of the First Arkansas Press". Arkansas Historical Quarterly. 14 (2): 161–171. doi:10.2307/40025472. JSTOR 40025472.
• Ross, M. (1969). Arkansas Gazette: the Early Years, 1819-1866: A History. Arkansas Gazette Foundation.
• Reed, Roy (2009). Looking Back at the Arkansas Gazette: An Oral History. EBL-Schweitzer. University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 978-1-61075-249-7. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
• "The Arkansas Gazette". encyclopediaofarkansas.net. Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
• "The Old Gray Lady: Arkansas' First Newspaper". aetn.org. AETN. 2016. Retrieved November 8, 2016.

External links

• Media related to Arkansas Gazette at Wikimedia Commons
• The American Era at Historical Marker Database