Texas Newspapers, C.S.A.

The press the war gutted had been slow to take root. The first Texas newspaper of record, the Gaceta de Texas of May 1813, was a Spanish-language sheet for the Gutierrez-Magee expedition, and no paper lasted until the eve of the Revolution. Between 1813 and 1846 at least eighty-six titles appeared. The Galveston News began in 1842, and the Handbook counts it the oldest still functioning. Thirty-six papers were running in 1852. Recovery after the war was quick: seventy-three papers were printing by 1868, though only eight were dailies and half of those were in Galveston.

What the plaque says

Texas Newspapers, C.S.A. Among privations endured in Texas during the Civil War (1861-65) was the shortage of newspapers, which dwindled from 82 (combined circulation: 100,000) to fewer than 20 by early 1862. Many newspapermen had closed shop and enlisted at once, when the war began. Others were forced to quit for lack of ink and paper, available only through Mexico or the blockaded Gulf Coast. A good pre-war paper had four 5-column pages, but many wartime issues were limited to half a page, printed on bill forms, wallpaper, tissue, straw paper, or brown wrapping paper. State subsidies for paper making resulted in very little production. Citizens made ink substitutes, but in very small quantities. To get news, editors copied months' old letters or clippings from soldiers or blockade runners. The "Texas Republican" (Marshall) led in coverage, as it had the use of army telegraph items. The "State Gazette" (Austin) kept a pony express rider at the Brenham railhead to bring in Houston papers only 18 hours old. The Houston "Telegraph" had a staffer with the army, and shared with the Galveston "News" the expenses of a courier to and from Virginia--who also carried family and Confederate mail when slipping through Federal lines to cross the Mississippi. (1971)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mount Bonnell — 4.3 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 6.3 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.
• Harry Ransom Center — 6.4 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 6.7 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.

More markers nearby

• First Presbyterian Church of Austin — 1.1 mi
• Balcones Fault Aids Colonization of Texas — 1.7 mi
• Fiskville — 2.7 mi
• Waters Park — 3.3 mi