Greenville "Herald"

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just as it stands. Back in April of 1869, a man named J. C.

Bayne sat down and started something in Greenville that nobody else in Hunt County had managed to do before him. He established the Herald. Now, that might sound simple enough, but consider what that means.

Every business that has come and gone in that county since, every shop that opened with big dreams and closed with quiet regret, every enterprise that burned bright and then burned out, the Herald outlasted them all. The marker calls it the oldest business institution in the county, and that is not a small thing to say. That is a title earned the hard way, one edition at a time.

Then came E. W. Harris.

A later owner, and a man with ambition to spare. In 1890, Harris started a daily. Took what Bayne had built and decided once a week wasn't nearly enough.

After that, the W. C. Poole family took hold of the paper, and they held on tight, running it from 1914 all the way to 1956.

That is a long stretch of ink and newsprint and late nights. But in 1956, the Harte-Hanks chain came calling, purchased the Herald, and merged it with the Banner. Two papers, one name.

And by the time this marker was put up in 1969, a man named Matt Sheley was sitting in the publisher's chair of the Herald Banner. J. C.

Bayne planted a seed in April of 1869. A hundred years later, it was still growing.

What the marker says

Established April 1869 by J. C. Bayne. Is oldest business institution in county. E. W. Harris, later owner, started daily, 1890. W. C. Poole family owned it 1914-1956, when Harte-Hanks chain purchased and merged it with "Banner." Matt Sheley is now "Herald Banner" publisher. (1969)