The Junction Eagle

The Eagle was one of hundreds of small-town weeklies. In 1910 Texas had 89 dailies, 20 semiweeklies and 768 weeklies, published in 550 towns. Weeklies fell from 679 in 1920 to 604 in 1943, when 543 towns, including 235 of the 254 county seats, had some publication. Weeklies declined from the middle of World War II, rose for several years, then fell again after 1951 under the wage-and-hour law, the Korean War and urbanization, before leveling off largely through offset printing and central printing plants. More than 200 of the state's 567 weeklies of 1965 were printed offset.

What the plaque says

The Junction Eagle Kimble County's first newspaper began operations in February 1882. Editor J. F. Lewis' Washington Press printed four incarnations of the Junction newspaper: THE WESTERN TEXAN, the JUNCTION CITY CLIPPER, the KIMBLE COUNTY CITIZEN, and the JUNCTION CITIZEN-LIGHT. In May 1919 a group of businessmen, including Coke R. Stevenson, (Governor of Texas from 1941 to 1947) formed the Junction Publishing Company and renamed the paper the JUNCTION EAGLE. Though the EAGLE has changed hands several times, its mission remains the same. The JUNCTION EAGLE hometown newspaper continues to serve both as a sourch of information and a chronicle of our times. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kimble County Historical Museum — 0.9 mi
  A free county museum in Junction, the town at the meeting of the North and South Llano, with the papers, photographs and tools of a ranching county.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 26 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.
• Fort McKavett State Historic Site — 31 mi
  The post Sherman called the prettiest in Texas, home to soldiers of all four Buffalo Soldier regiments and then to a town that lived in its buildings until 1973.

More markers nearby

• Colonel John Griffith — steps away
• Stevenson, Coke R., Texas Statesman — steps away
• John Sterling Durst Pioneer Minister — steps away
• Fight of Sheriff's Posse with Cattle Rustlers — steps away