Type Daily newspaper Owner(s) Gannett Company Editor Doug Williamson | Format Broadsheet Publisher Jeff DeLoach Founded 1881 | |
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Abilene Reporter-News is a daily newspaper based in Abilene, Texas, US. The newspaper started publishing as the weekly Abilene Reporter, helmed by Charles Edwin Gilbert on June 17, 1881, just three months after Abilene was founded. It is hence the oldest continuous business in the city. It became a daily newspaper in 1885.
Two months after starting the paper, a fire destroyed several buildings in Abilene, including Gilbert's office. He rode the train 21 miles east to Baird and used a borrowed printing press to produce an extra edition on the fire. Two other Abilene papers began publication in the 1880s.
The newspaper, owned in the early 1920s by Bernard Hanks, became one of the two original flagships of the Harte-Hanks newspaper chain in 1924.
In 1937, the company merged its morning paper, the Morning News, with the afternoon Daily Reporter to form the Abilene Reporter-News. The newspaper published morning and evening editions into the 1950s.
The E. W. Scripps Company bought the newspaper, along with other Texas-based Harte-Hanks papers, in 1997. The company spun out its newspaper assets into Journal Media Group in April 2015.