The Athens Review

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Picture a Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1885, when most folks in Henderson County were thinking about something other than the newspaper business. J.

B. Bishop and George M. Johnson had other ideas.

Those two, editors and owners both, sat down and launched a weekly paper called The Athens Review. Six columns wide, four pages deep, and yours for a dollar fifty a year. Not a bad deal.

Now, that wasn't the first time someone in Henderson County had tried to get a newspaper off the ground. Way back in 1873, printer J. H.

Cox and a man called Professor J. E. Thomas had founded The Athens Bulletin.

The marker notes that was 23 years after the present boundaries of Henderson County were established. The Bulletin was the earliest newspaper in the county, but it only operated for about two years. Then there was The Athenian, running from 1883 through early 1885, and here's a detail worth savoring: the equipment that had belonged to The Athenian was the very same equipment Bishop and Johnson used to print that first issue of The Athens Review.

Tools have a way of outlasting the hands that first held them. The Review didn't stay with its founders for long. In 1886, a 19-year-old printer from Waco named William Dixon Bell bought the paper.

Young man in a new town with a press and something to prove. Bell held it until 1888, when he sold it to J. H.

Walford. Then in 1900, Col. R.

E. Yantis of Van Zandt County came into the picture, and he wasted no time making his mark. On June 20th, 1901, Yantis published the very first issue of The Athens Daily Review.

Weekly to daily. That's a statement of faith in a place and its people. Both papers, the weekly Review and the daily, have kept right on running since that time.

And through all of it, through every change of hand and every shift in fortune, The Athens Review stayed devoted to what it was built for: the development and progress of Athens, Henderson County, and the people who called that corner of Texas home. Some things, it turns out, are worth keeping in print.

What the marker says

"The Athens Review" was established as a weekly newspaper by J. B. Bishop and George M. Johnson, editors and owners on Dec. 24, 1885. The earliest newspaper in Henderson County, "The Athens Bulletin," had been founded by printer J. H. Cox and Professor J. E. Thomas in 1873, 23 years after the present boundaries of Henderson County were established. It operated for about two years. Equipment owned by "The Athenian" from 1883 through early 1885 was used to print the first issue of "The Athens Review," a six-column, four-page publication with a subscription price of $1.50 a year. In 1886, the paper was bought by William Dixon Bell, a 19-year-old Waco printer, who sold it to J. H. Walford in 1888. Col. R. E. Yantis of Van Zandt County bought it in 1900 and in 1901 published the first issue of "The Athens Daily Review" on June 20. Both newspapers have continued in operation since that time. Throughout its history, "The Athens Review" has served the area as a community newspaper, encouraging community spirit and supporting projects of benefit to the area. Devoted to the development and progress of Athens and Henderson County and their people, the newspaper has been an important element in the area's heritage.