The Victoria Advocate

The Advocate began as a Whig paper. John Logan and Thomas Sterne had founded the Frontier Whig in Van Buren, Arkansas, in 1844 and brought their politics with them. It turned Democratic under Sam Addison White after 1859 and stayed there for more than a century. In 1890 John Bartow, who liked James Hogg personally, still fought the Railroad Commission amendment. George French held the paper for forty-one years from 1901, having come to it as an apprentice at fourteen. After January 1980 it became politically independent.

What the plaque says

The Victoria Advocate The second oldest newspaper in continuous operation in Texas, the "Victoria Advocate" began as the weekly "Texan Advocate" in 1846. The first issue was published on May 8, 1846, the same day as the Battle of Palo Alto, first battle in the Mexican War. An extra edition was printed to inform local citizens of the event. The newspaper's first publishers were Thomas Sterne (1818-1906) and John Davis Logan (1818-1878), both experienced newspapermen. They changed the name of the paper in its first year to the "Texian Advocate" in response to requests from early Texas pioneers. Sterne and Logan sold the newspaper in 1853. Both became ranchers, and Logan later operated the "Daily Herald" newspaper in San Antonio. Later editors and publishers included Sam Addison White, Victor Marion Rose, Frank R. Pridham, Edward Daniel Linn, John L. Bartow, Louis Nicholas Hofer, and James McDonald. It was during White's ownership that the newspaper was renamed the "Victoria Advocate" between 1859 and 1861. McDonald introduced the "Daily Advocate" in 1897. Both daily and weekly editions were published until 1943. Growing with the city, the "Advocate" has served the citizens of Victoria for well over a century. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• De León Plaza — steps away
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 1.7 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.
• Fannin Battleground State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The open prairie east of Goliad where Fannin's retreating column formed a square short of the Coleto Creek timber on March 19, 1836, and surrendered the next day.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 25 mi
  The 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church — steps away
• Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church — steps away
• Hauschild Opera House — steps away
• Brownson's Bank — steps away