Times Publishing Company

The Times was older than Howard's ownership of it: the Handbook of Texas says Sam Bell Thomas founded it in 1887. The town's first paper, the Wichita Mirror, had been printed by Steve Reynolds in the early 1880s, and the Wichita Herald, managed by Dr. H. A. Lewis, later belonged to Frank T. Daugherty and Ed Howard. Robert E. Huff, the banker and attorney, helped organize the Times Publishing Company and was a director until his death in 1939. The Times and the Record News appeared separately until 1987, when they were combined into one morning paper.

What the plaque says

Ed Howard, a pioneer area publisher, acquired a local newspaper in 1898. His "Weekly Times" became a daily afternoon paper in 1907, soon after several leading Wichita Falls businessmen established the Times Publishing Company to provide financial support for the operation. That same year Howard was joined in the business by Ben D. Donnell, a newspaperman from Indiana, who served first as city editor. Under their direction the paper became a leader in the promotion of Wichita Falls civic activities and commerce. News stories recorded the development of the city and the railroad, local oil discoveries, and the growth of the area cattle industry. Howard also served as city postmaster, 1916-1924, and as a University of Texas regent. Following his death in 1948, his son Rhea became the publisher. A leader in the state Democratic party, Rhea Howard served as an informal advisor to three presidents. The Times Publishing of the Wichita Falls "Record News", a morning paper. Throughout the years of operation, members of the Howard and Donnell families have provided leadership for the firm. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kell House Museum — 0.5 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• World's Littlest Skyscraper — 0.6 mi
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 12 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 18 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.

More markers nearby

• Kemp Public Library — steps away
• Wichita Falls Junior College — 0.4 mi
• First County Officials — 0.5 mi
• Texas Governor James V. Allred — 0.5 mi