The Colorado County Citizen celebrates 165th anniversary

By Alesia Wooldridge
Colorado County Citizen

(Reprinted from the July 27, 2022, edition.)

COLUMBUS – The City of Columbus was still a youngster in 1857 when The Colorado County Citizen newspaper was founded.
The earliest known edition of The Citizen is dated Aug.  15, 1857. It is assumed by some local historians that the first issue actually came out three weeks earlier. If this is true, then the first edition of The Citizen would have published July 25, 1857.
The Colorado County Citizen began as the Colorado Citizen, and that was the name of two different newspapers published for Columbus.
James Davis Baker established the first, what is now The Colorado County Citizen. Baker moved to Columbus from Lockhart, where he for a short time ran a newspaper called the Southern Watchman.

Civil War halts Citizen production
Four years after Baker began publishing the Citizen, the Civil War began in April 1861. As the war continued, the entire newspaper staff, including Baker and his brothers Hicks and Ben, joined the Confederate army. The Citizen ceased publication around November 1861 and resumed around September 1865.
Hicks was killed in the war. James and Ben returned to Columbus and resumed publication of the newspaper.
The last known edition under the Bakers was dated October 20, 1866 (vol. 6, no. 1).
The Bakers sold the newspaper to a local attorney, Fred Barnard.
Barnard changed the name of the paper to Columbus Times. He later sold that newspaper. In 1869, he and Ben Baker wanted to get back into the newspaper business, and they established another newspaper, resurrecting the name Colorado Citizen.
The earliest known edition of the new Citizen is dated May 6, 1869 and designated volume 1, number 15.
Presuming that the paper was issued every week, it can be assumed that the first edition of the new Citizen was issued Jan. 29, 1869.

Citizen faces yellow fever, fire
Baker and Barnard faced an epidemic and devastating fire during their years of revamping the Citizen. They suspended publication during the Columbus yellow fever epidemic of late 1873.
This epidemic forced most Columbus businesses to close temporarily, and also drove many residents of the city to rural homes and camps for a period of time.
When the Citizen office burned on Feb. 5, 1880, all of the equipment and the fire destroyed back issues. The paper did not resume publication unti l March 25, 1880.
The paper was issued under the name Colorado Citizen until 1927, when then-owner Henry Hurr on Jan. 6, 1927, changed the name to Colorado County Citizen.
In 1998, Jim Chionsini, president of Granite Publications, bought the Citizen from a group of local citizens who had owned and operated it since 1993. For more than 20 years, the Citizen has been a member of the Granite Publications, and now, Granite Media Partners, family. Granite Media Partners is owned by Daniel Philhower.

Citizen publishers, editors through the years
Notable publishers and/or editors serving the newspaper include: James Davis Baker, Benjamin Marshall Baker, Fred Barnard, Irvin Guy Stafford, Elias Barry, Joseph Jefferson Mansfield, D. O. Bell, William Ralph Gray, Charles Mrazek, William Lewis Pendergraft, Henry Hurr, Henry Hurr, Jr., Paul Grey, Irvin Guy Stafford, Jr., Kermit K. Kendall, Elizabeth McLeary McMahan, Mabel Claire McGee, Truman McMahan, James Joseph Belcher, Francis Anthony “Andy” Heines, Jerry Scarborough, Nancy Scarborough, Maynard Livingston “Tex” Rogers, Sally Rogers, Joanie Griffin, Cindy Parkhurst, Michelle Banse Stokes, and Alesia Woolridge.
Woolridge, who was named managing editor in 2016 and publisher/editor in 2020, was the first African American editor and publisher in the newspaper’s history.
Karen Lopez currently serves as executive publisher.
The Citizen is the official newspaper of Columbus and Colorado County. As one of the state’s oldest newspapers still in publication, The Citizen’s mission is still “To inform and serve the citizens of Colorado County.”

*Information for this article is from “A Handbook of Colorado County Newspapers” compiled by Bill Stein and Elizabeth Schoellmann, and published in Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, vol. 1, no. 9, June 1991.