About The Daily times. [volume] (Harrison, Boone County, Ark.) 1919-1929
Harrison, Boone County, Ark. (1919-1929)

The Harrison Times, The Daily Times, and Harrison Daily Times

Political divisions formed in the Civil War led to the creation of Boone County in northwestern Arkansas during Reconstruction. In 1869, the Democratic, Confederate leaning area that became Boone County was created by splitting away from Carroll County, which was composed largely of Republican, Union sympathizers. The Boone County seat was formed in 1870 with the merger of two settlements, Crooked Creek and Stiffler Spring. The resulting town was named Harrison after the Union officer who platted it. Harrison became the Boone County seat despite strong opposition from a town a few miles away, the heavily Confederate, Democratic Bellefonte. Bellefonte residents were opposed to Harrison as the county seat because Harrison citizens were not as supportive of the Confederacy and Democratic Party.

This inter-town rivalry eventually led to the creation of the Harrison Times, a newspaper that owed much of its success to the Newman family. In 1869, Thomas Newman was working as a printer in St. Louis, Missouri when he answered the bid for a newspaper person in Harrison. Newman moved to Arkansas and started the Boone County Advocate in 1870 (1870-1872). The Advocate was the first newspaper in Boone County, and a Republican one. Nearby in Bellefonte, James Buford Ford and Adams started the Boone County Record, a Democratic paper, in 1871 (1871-1872).The following year, the Record was consolidated with the Boone County Advocate, into the Advocate and Record, with the Republican Newman as editor and James Henry Robinson as co-publisher. However, within the year the town's combined paper split and the newspaper equipment was divided between Robinson and Newman. Robinson retained the name of the Boone County Record (1873-1???) and resumed publication of a Democratic paper in Bellefonte.

Meanwhile, Newman used his half of the newspaper materials to resume publishing out of Harrison, creating the Highlander in 1873 (1873-1876). The Highlander was a four-page paper published on Saturdays, with an estimated circulation of 400. Within a year, Newman sold the Highlander to Azro Buck Cory to become the first mayor of Harrison. Cory ran the Highlander as a Democratic paper alone until 1876, when James Allan Spradling bought a half interest in the paper and took over as editor. The two renamed the paper the Harrison Times. Later that year, Spradling sold his shares to J. A. Stockton, who soon sold to Robert Shelly Armitage. In 1878, John R. Newman, the son of Thomas Newman, became editor of the Times with Cory. Finally, Cory left the paper he helped name, selling his interest to Hal C. King, who sold his interest in 1884 to Segel Lebow. Eventually Newman became sole owner and editor, working at the Times until his death in 1919. Before learning the printer's trade, Newman had taught instrumental music in Missouri and central Arkansas. During his tenure at the Harrison Times, Newman served as a Captain in the Spanish-American War.

After John Newman's death, his sons took charge of the paper under the heading J. R. Newman's Sons, with Thomas Murphy Newman as acting manager. In 1919, the Times began publishing a daily edition as well as their usual weekly edition. The weekly editions were eventually dropped, but the Times has continued to publish a daily edition to present day.

Provided by: Arkansas State Archives