The Canyon News

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it along to you straight. Way out in Canyon, Randall County, the newspaper business didn't just happen overnight. It started with a whisper, a single sheet called the Echo, printed in 1889.

That was the first city newspaper, and if you can picture a frontier town just finding its footing, you can picture what that little paper meant. Not much ink to spare, probably, but enough to matter. Then came 1896, and a new voice stepped up called the Stayer.

The Stayer didn't stay with that name forever, though. It got itself renamed the Randall County News, and that paper became the direct predecessor of what folks would come to know simply as the News. One name folding into the next, the story carrying forward.

Now here is where the tale really settles in and gets comfortable. A man named Clyde W. Warwick took the editor's chair in 1910, and he didn't get up for forty-five years.

Forty-five years, 1910 to 1955, steering that paper through everything the twentieth century could throw at a small Texas town. And the work showed. The News won awards for outstanding weekly in 1942 and again in 1950.

But the crown jewel, the moment that put Canyon on the national map of print, was a Special Edition in 1949 that was rated the best in the entire nation. The whole nation. Not the best in Texas, not the best in the Panhandle.

The best there was. Then in 1960, Troy Martin became editor, and the story kept rolling. One paper, several names, a handful of editors, and a century's worth of Canyon, Texas put down in newsprint.

What the marker says

First city newspaper, the"Echo," was printed 1889. The "Stayer" (1896), later renamed "Randall County News," was predecessor of the "News." Clyde W. Warwick, editor 45 years, 1910-1955. Won awards for outstanding weekly 1942, 1950. Special Edition (1949) was rated nation's best. Troy Martin became editor 1960. (1968)