The Albany News

Edgar Rye followed a Kentucky family to Fort Griffin in 1876 and went to work as justice of the peace and county attorney. His Albany Tomahawk of 1879 was only the start. He drew cartoons and caricatures, supervised construction of the Albany courthouse in the 1880s, and sent home Mexican Letters from a Veracruz oil and soap factory. Two newspaper series, Old Times in Texas and Character Sketches, were folded into his 1909 book The Quirt and Spur. He later worked in Wichita Falls and died in Hollywood in 1920.

What the plaque says

The Albany News IN 1866, A UNION ARMY REGULAR, HARRY HALL (H.H.) McCONNELL (1837-1895), LEFT PENNSYLVANIA AND TRAVELED TO FORT BELKNAP NEAR JACKSBORO. A NATURAL JOURNALIST, HE WAS A TALENTED WRITER WITH AN INQUISITIVE MIND AND SENSE OF HUMOR. ALONG WITH HIS PARTNER, R. CHANDLER, McCONNELL BEGAN A NEWSPAPER IN JACKSBORO CALLED THE FRONTIER ECHO ON JUNE 30, 1875. LATER THAT YEAR, CAPTAIN GEORGE W. ROBSON (1837-1918), A UNION OFFICER FROM KANSAS, BOUGHT THE ECHO. IN 1878, ROBSON RELOCATED TO FT. GRIFFIN AND RENAMED THE NEWSPAPER THE FORT GRIFFIN ECHO, AND FROM 1883-1884, IT WAS NAMED THE ALBANY ECHO. ROBSON'S NEWSPAPER WAS A SUCCESS WITH MUCH TO SAY ABOUT CRIME, RELIGION, POLITICS, CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY AND PUBLIC MORALS. IN 1879, EDGAR RYE, A KENTUCKY MAN WHO BRIEFLY WORKED WITH ROBSON, BEGAN A NEWSPAPER CALLED THE ALBANY TOMAHAWK. FOR FOUR YEARS, ROBSON'S AND RYE'S NEWSPAPERS RIVALED EACH OTHER THROUGH PRINT. FINALLY, IN 1884, RYE PURCHASED THE ECHO, MERGED WITH THE ALBANY STAR TO FORM THE ALBANY NEWS (ALSO KNOWN AS THE ALBANY WEEKLY NEWS FROM 1891-1894). WITH THE TALENTS OF DON H. BIGGERS OF BRECKENRIDGE, RYE'S NEWSPAPER WAS LIVELY, UNUSUAL AND EXCELLENT FOR THE WEST TEXAS JOURNALISM WORLD OF THE 19TH CENTURY. THE 20TH CENTURY EDITORS, PAUL BAKER FROM 1908-1917, COL. DICK McCARTY FROM 1917-1944 AND JOHN McGAUGHEY FROM 1939-1971, GAVE THE NEWSPAPER MORE CREATIVITY AND STABILITY. MANY HISTORIANS REGULARLY USE THESE NOTEWORTHY NEWSPAPERS FOR HISTORICAL RESEARCH AND TO GAIN INSIGHT INTO WEST TEXAS HISTORY. THESE SIGNIFICANT PUBLICATIONS AND CONTRIBUTORS GAVE FUTURE TEXANS KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF FRONTIER LIFE, PEOPLE AND EVENTS. (2011)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Jail Art Center — steps away
  An art museum in Albany's 1878 stone jail, where the masons carved their initials to be sure of pay, now holding Chinese tomb figures and works by Picasso and Klee.
• Fort Griffin State Historic Site — 14 mi
  The ruins of an 1867 cavalry post on a plateau above the Clear Fork of the Brazos, judged unfit for habitation and used nine more years, now home to the official state longhorn herd.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 23 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.
• Conrad Hilton Center and Mobley Hotel — 29 mi
  The 40-room oil-boom hotel in Cisco that Conrad Hilton bought in 1919 when a bank deal fell through, now a museum of the Hilton start and of Cisco's 1927 Santa Claus bank robbery.

More markers nearby

• City of Albany — steps away
• Ledbetter Salt Work, C.S.A. — steps away
• Fort Griffin Fandangle — steps away
• Lt. Col. William E. Dyess — steps away