About The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917
Greenville, Miss. (1868-1917)

The Greenville Times

Washington County, Mississippi, created in 1827 from parts of Warren and Yazoo counties, is in the heart of the Yazoo-Mississippi River Delta. White planters, through the labor of large numbers of African-American slaves, cleared the rich alluvial soil to grow cotton. In the early 20^th century, the county seat of Greenville, located on the Mississippi River, was a commercial center and developed some light manufacturing.

The Greenville Times began publication in 1868. Also known as the Weekly Times, its frequency, size, and intended audience varied. Initially a weekly, from October 1895 to March 1910 the paper was sometimes a semiweekly, weekly, or daily, before finally stabilizing once more as a weekly. In the 1870s, the Times comprised four pages, but in the 20^th century issues were usually eight pages. An 1878 advertisement stated that the paper was “especially devoted to the interests of Greenville and the counties of Washington, Bolivar, Issaquena, Sunflower, and Sharkey.” By 1909, the intended audience was primarily Greenville and Washington County because vibrant papers had been established in the surrounding counties.

Captain John Seymore McNeely was the longest serving editor of the Weekly Times. The staunch Democrat and Confederate veteran had been co-proprietor of the Woodville Republican (1858 - ) before buying the Greenville Times in 1869. McNeely was owner/editor until 1892 and later edited the Vicksburg Herald  (1897-1957). During his tenure at the Greenville Times, he also was an elected member of the 1890 Mississippi constitutional convention. Fellow journalists regarded McNeely as one of the leading editorial writers in the state.

In 1878, Greenville was devastated by the state’s worst yellow fever epidemic, which traveled upriver from New Orleans. The Times reported the first deaths in the September 7th issue. Printed weekly until the epidemic abated in mid-November, the list of deaths eventually covered two-and-a-half front-page columns. By one estimate, 33 percent of Greenville’s population died in the 1878 epidemic.

In 1917, the Times merged with Greenville’s other major paper, the Daily Democrat (1896-1917), to form the Daily Democrat-Times (1917-38) and the Weekly Democrat-Times (1917-38). In 1938, the Democrat-Times merged with the Delta Star (1936-38), to form the Delta Democrat-Times (1938 - ). Hodding Carter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1946 for his editorials in the Delta Democrat-Times, currently the only daily paper published in Washington County.

Provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History