Huntsville Item

The Item followed the Texas Banner, which the Handbook of Texas dates 1846 to 1850, and was still publishing in 1991. During the 1867 yellow fever epidemic its founder, George Robinson, suggested that the fever came into town with a stranger named Mynatt. Wikipedia calls it reportedly the second-oldest continuously published newspaper in Texas. As of a 2009 New York Times report cited there, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice reserved the Item a place among the witnesses at executions, a spot shared only with the Associated Press, and the paper reported every execution in the state.

What the plaque says

Huntsville Item English native George Robinson (1820-1888), formerly of the Galveston News, moved to Huntsville by 1846 and began printing the Huntsville Item on August 20, 1850. He was able to employ an apprentice printer that year. In 1859 Robinson and Dr. H. Morton, a dentist, built a two-story building. Dr. Morton's office was on the first floor, and the second floor housed the Item's printing operation and office. By 1860, Robinson employed a Canadian printer named R. H. Griffin. George Robinson served six months in the Texas state troops during the Civil War and then returned to Huntsville to continue publishing the Item. His work with the paper was again interrupted during an epidemic of yellow fever and the economic conditions of Reconstruction from 1867 to 1869. The newspaper office burned in 1878 and again in 1884. That year, George's youngest son, Fred Robinson, took over publication of the paper. He moved operations into a building on the town square and into another structure in 1885; that building burned in 1892. After another fire in 1902, Fred Robinson sold the paper to J. A. Palmer, who merged it with another Huntsville newspaper and renamed it the Huntsville Post-Item. The names, publishers and owners changed several times in the following years, but by 1914 it was the Item again, operated by Ross Woodall. His family continued to operate the paper after his death in 1943. In 1967 the Woodall family sold the paper to Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc., which owned the Item until 1986. Later owned by several other companies, the Huntsville Item is one of the oldest newspapers in Texas. (2000)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 31 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.

More markers nearby

• Sallie E. Gibbs — steps away
• Walker County — 0.2 mi
• Huntsville Springs — 0.2 mi
• The Five Courthouses of Walker County — 0.3 mi