ABILENE REPORTER-NEWS

Abilene Reporter-News, the oldest existing business institution in Abilene, was founded by Charles Edwin Gilbert from Navasota, Texas on June 17, 1881, with its first edition printed at the Abilene Steam Printing House. A fire destroyed several buildings in Abilene, including Gilbert's office, two months after he started the paper. A borrowed printing press allowed him to produce an extra edition of the fire using a train to Baird, 21 miles east. During the 1880s, two other Abilene papers were a... lso published. The preacher W.L. is a part-timer. Gibbs began publishing the "Magnetic Quill" in 1882. Gilbert's printer, James L. Lowry, began the "Taylor County News" three years later. One of Lowry's early editions discussed a duel between Gilbert and Gibbs, which both survived. The Reporter-News became a daily newspaper in 1885, and has been credited with being the first newspaper in West Texas to fight the open range. According to newspaper "lore," the ARN, as it is familiarly known today, was the first paper in Texas to ban whiskey advertisements and was at the forefront of American journalism in using classified ads in special columns.

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