DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, every great institution has to start somewhere, and the Baptist Standard — today the largest state paper in the Southern Baptist Convention — started in Fannin County, Texas, in the year 1888. Two men, Lewis Holland and John H.
Boyet, put their names to something they called The Baptist News. Small name, modest beginnings, big ambitions. That's a Texas story if I ever heard one.
The very next year, 1889, the paper picked up and moved to Dallas. The city must have agreed with it, because things started moving. By 1892, under the guidance of a man named J.B.
Cranfill, the publication got itself a new name — The Baptist Standard. Now that's a name that sounds like it intends to stay. But here's the twist: that same year, 1892, the paper moved again — this time to Waco.
Maybe Waco made an offer. Maybe the road called. The marker doesn't say, and I won't guess.
What the marker does say is that Dallas wasn't done with it. In 1898, the Standard came back. Came back, settled in, and started growing into something.
By 1914, the Baptist General Convention of Texas took ownership, and under editors like J.B. Gambrell, that little Fannin County newsletter that started life as The Baptist News grew into the largest state paper in the entire Southern Baptist Convention. Started with two men and a county paper.
Ended up carrying the voice of a denomination. Not bad for something that changed its name and moved three times before it found its footing.
What the marker says
The history of this denominational publication dates to 1888, when Lewis Holland and John H. Boyet founded "The Baptist News" in Fannin County. It moved to Dallas in 1889, and its name cnaged to "The Baptist Standard" in 1892 under the guidance of J.B. Cranfill. The paper moved to Waco that year but returned to Dallas in 1898. It came under the ownership of the Baptist General Convention of Texas in 1914. Under the leadership of such editors as J.B. Gambrell, the publication has grown into the largest state paper in the Southern Baptist Convention. (1989)