DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about The Donna News, out of Hidalgo County. Now, most towns get their names from geography, or from some old settler who got there first and liked the sound of his own name. But Donna, Texas — Donna got its name from a daughter.
Back in 1904, T.J. Hooks and A.F. Hester, Sr. were out there founding towns along the StLB&M Rail Line, and railroad president Uriah Lott stepped in and did something a little unexpected.
He chose the names of Hooks' daughters for two of those towns — one he called Donna, and the other Beatrice, known also as East Donna. Two daughters, two towns. Not a bad kind of immortality.
Now fast-forward to 1910. A man named Garland Buck put up a two-story brick building right here on this site, and inside it he set up a paper called the Donna Developer. That building, and that press, were going to outlast just about everything anybody planned for them.
The paper changed hands more than once over the years — answering to the name the Donna Dispatch for a spell, then the Donna News, then the Donna News-Advocate — keepin' the community's story in ink all the while, right up until its run ended in the 1960s. The building itself kept going. In 1969, the Donna Chamber of Commerce bought it, and by 1974 it was sharing its walls with the Donna Hooks Fletcher Museum.
Then 1988 brought a fire, and the structure took some real damage. That's the kind of blow that finishes off a lot of old buildings. But not this one.
It was restored, and it went right back to work as part of the museum — helping preserve the history of the paper and the community that paper served for so many decades. A railroad man named towns after a colleague's daughters. A brick building held a newspaper through six decades and four names.
A fire came, and the building stood its ground. Some stories just refuse to end.
What the marker says
In 1904, T.J. Hooks and A.F. Hester, Sr. founded towns on the StLB&M Rail Line. Railroad president Uriah Lott chose the names of Hooks' daughters for two towns, Donna and Beatrice (East Donna). In 1910, Garland Buck built a two-story brick building at this site for the Donna Developer. It changed hands several times, known also as the Donna Dispatch, the Donna News and the Donna News-Advocate until its run ended in the 1960s. In 1969, the Donna Chamber of Commerce bought the building and later shared it with the Donna Hooks Fletcher Museum, created in 1974. A fire damaged the structure in 1988, but its restoration and use as part of the museum helps preserve the history of the paper and the community it served. (2005)