The Houston Press was a Scripps Howard daily afternoon newspaper, founded in 1911, in Houston, Texas.[2] Under the leadership of founding editor Paul C. Edwards (1911–16), Marcellus E. Foster, known as "Mefo" (1927–37), and George Carmack (1946–64), the newspaper developed a reputation for flashy stories about violence and sex and for exposés of political malfeasance. It ceased publication in 1964.[3]
History
The Houston Press was first issued September 25, 1911, from a plant at 709 Louisiana Street, for 1 cent a copy.[2] For the first fiftyeight days, the Press had no advertising; its management
asserted that its circulation had yet to warrant investment of any advertiser's money.
Notable former staff members included Walter Cronkite,[4] who later became the CBS news anchor; Thomas Thompson, author of Hearts and Blood and Money; Donald Forst, later editor of Newsday and The Village Voice; Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and biographer Vance Trimble; columnists Sig Byrd ("The Stroller") and Carl Victor Little (1894–1959) ("By The Way");[5] gossip columnist Maxine Mesinger; and television crusader Marvin Zindler, who once worked there as a photographer covering crime stories. Joseph Agris, who became Zindler's biographer, called the Houston Press "a paper that, by journalistic standards, had no standards at all" and Clyde Waddell who was a chief photographer in 1943.[6]
Closure of the Press in 1964
In 1963, the year before it closed, the Press had an average daily circulation (Monday–Saturday) of 90,400, and employed 320 people. On March 20, 1964, editor Carmack and Business Manager Ray L. Powers announced that the newspaper, plant, and facilities had been sold to the larger of its two rivals Houston Chronicle for $4.5 million[7][3][8][9] (equivalent to $42.46 million in 2022).[10] The Press had never missed a publication since it was founded.[1] Following the closure of the Press, two Houston daily newspapers remained, the morning Houston Post and the evening Houston Chronicle (1964 average daily circulation of 226,600). Houston, before the closing of the Press, had been the only city west of the Mississippi River with more than two daily newspapers.[1]
Houston Press selected personnel
Editors
In its 52-year history The Press had six editors:
1911–1916: Paul Carroll Edwards (1882–1962), in 1975, was posthumously inducted into the California Press Hall of Fame. He had been associated with Scripps for 50 years. He was a 1906 graduate of Stanford[11] and, in 1943, was appointed to Stanford's Board of Trustees, serving as President of the Board from 1948 to 1953. Edwards was editor of the San Francisco News from 1932 until his death.
1916–1922: G.V. Sanders (né Gold Viron Gribble Sanders; aka Gold Vernon Sanders; 1891–1975) never used his first name, "Gold," until later in life.
1922–1927: Charles Joseph Lilley (1893–1946) died November 18, 1946, while serving as Editor and general manager of the Sacramento Union, a role he had held since 1930.[12]
1925–1929: Webb Chamberlain Artz (1889–1941), in 1924, after 4 years with the San Antonio Evening News as City Editor, left to join the Press in the same role. He went on to become Managing Editor of the Press.[14][15][16]
1929–1931: Dudley Davis (né William Dudley Davis; 1901–1931) died July 10, 1931, of injuries after his automobile struck a bus.
1931–1937: Edward Murray Pooley (1898–1969), who had been City Editor of the Press, succeeded Davis as Managing editor. He was a 1919 graduate of Sewanee.
1947–1951: Sig Byrd (né Luther Sigman Byrd; 1909–1987), born in Blanket, Texas, wrote a popular daily column for the Press, "The Stroller", which led to a book, Sig Byrd's Houston (1955; Viking Press).[17][18] His beat covered venues and neighborhoods that included Congress Avenue, the Segundo Barrio, Catfish Reef (the 400 block of lower Milam Street), the Bayou of the Buffalo Fish, Pearl Harbor (the corner of Hill and Lyons), The Big Casino (not Houston's oldest saloon at 908 Congress Avenue ... "But ... the new Big Casino, on Preston Avenue." ), and Vinegar Hill (red-light district, between Prairie and Congress Avenue). In 1951, he left the Press for the Houston Chronicle.[19][20][18] In Laura Flanders review of Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith's book, Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life (2009), she cited the authors' admiration of Byrd, "Over at the Houston Press,gumshoe reporter Sigman Byrd was 'out-Breslin[ing] Jimmy Breslin [of the New York Daily News] in terms of celebrating working-class heroes.'"[21][22] John Nova Lomax, writer for the current Houston Press, called Byrd, "Houson's King of True-Life Noir" (metaphor, simile and narrative).[23] Byrd's grandson, Sigman Mercer Byrd, Jr. (born 1964), is a writer.
1949–1950: Marjorie Hunter (1922–2001) graduated from Elon College in 1942 and, from 1961 until 1986, was a Washington Correspondent for The New York Times. She had worked as a reporter for the Press from 1949 to 1950.
1928–1931: Robert Cunningham Humphreys (1905–1965), after studying at Columbia University from 1926 to 1928, began his journalism career at the Press. He went on to become a publicity director for the Republican Party and GOP strategist. His career at the Press was short because, in 1931, he told the Press' City Editor that he had worked as a reporter for the New York World – which, reportedly, was untrue.[25]
1932–1936: Bonnie Tom Robinson (maiden; 1907–1993), born in Mineral Wells, began her newspaper career sometime before 1932 as a reporter for the Press.[26] She married George Burnett Carmack October 24, 1943, at Fort Riley, Kansas, while George was serving in the Army as a Captain.
Artists, illustrators, cartoonists
Sidney Hyman Van Ulm (1894–1978) joined the Press in 1925, where he drew cartoons for public relations, public service announcements, sports, legal trials, and advertisements. Ulm also was the golf editor of the Press for 37 years.[27]
Ed Franklin (né Edward Livingston Franklin; 1921–2006), a self-taught artist, born in Chireno, Texas, after World War II, by the late 1940s, joined the art department of the Press. He did illustration work, and a few cartoons. During the mid-1950s, The Saturday Evening Post,Argosy, and True published his work.[28]
Business managers
1911–1913: Clarence Emile Gilliam (1879–1947)[29] was, on the inaugural masthead of September 25, 1911, identified as Business Manager.[30] By 1918, he was with the Cincinnati Post. For Scripps-Howard, from about 1922, he became the Business Manager for the WarrenTribune Chronicle and had also been associated with newspapers in Toledo, Cleveland, and Denver (1914).
1919–1921: Ward Carlton Mayborn (1879–1958) was general manager of the Press. One of his sons and son's wife, Frank Willis Mayborn (1903–1987) and Sue Mayborn (née Anyse Sue White) are the namesakes of the Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas.
1939–1964: Ray Lyman Powers (1900–1983) was, from as early as 1932, Advertising Manager for the Press.[31] In 1936, he was promoted to Advertising Director, and, in 1939, to Business Manager.[32] Born in Barrington, Illinois, he had, in 1919, as a freshman, attended the University of Minnesota. In 1922, he earned a B.S. degree in General Business from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Houston Press buildings
Beginning May 1913, the Press moved from 709 Louisiana Street to a new building at Capitol Avenue and Bagby Street.[2] In 1928, the Houston Press erected a $500,000 (estimated equivalent of $6.77 million in 2022)[10] two-story, 45,000 square foot (4,200 m2) building (which formally opened February 14, 1928) at the corner of Rusk and Chartres Streets (2001 Rusk Street). It was designed in an Italianate-style by Howell & Thomas, a Cleveland firm.[33][8]
