McGregor Mirror

A hot-metal Linotype casts a whole line of type at once. According to Wikipedia, Ottmar Mergenthaler invented the machine in 1886, and it let a small crew set a multi-page paper even in the smallest towns. The Mirror's Model 14, bought at the State Fair in 1925 and used into the 1990s, outlasted the machine's usual era, which Wikipedia dates from 1886 to the 1980s. The Handbook of Texas adds that Crawford's weekly, the Sun, begun in 1928, merged with the McGregor Mirror in 1969.

What the plaque says

McGregor Mirror In 1904, the McGregor Mirror was founded by T.E. Streight (1870-1910). A young type setter, Charles "Chas" B. Hall (1887-1964), went to work at the Mirror when it opened. Later, he and his wife, Lillian "Lillie" (Spross) Hall (1890-1955), purchased it in 1918. Their daughter Bonnie Hall) Mooney (1925-1998) and husband Thomas E. Mooney (1924-1994) published the Mirror from 1956 to 1992. Their children continue publishing the award-winning newspaper marking three generations in the same building where it was established in 1904. The building houses one of the earliest Model 14 Linotypes in Texas, which was purchased at the State Fair in 1925 and was used until the 1990s. for generations, the Mirror has documented and preserved important, personal community events through the years. (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mother Neff State Park — 8.1 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Waco Mammoth National Monument — 18 mi
  A bone bed on the Bosque River where a nursery herd of at least 19 Columbian mammoths was trapped and drowned by floodwater 65,000 to 72,000 years ago, left in place under a dig shelter.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 18 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 18 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.

More markers nearby

• McGregor — steps away
• First Christian Church of McGregor (Disciples of Christ) — 0.2 mi
• First Baptist Church of McGregor — 0.3 mi
• The Grange in Texas — 1.9 mi