Mister McKinney and fellow board members of the #HarrisCountyHistoricalCommission joined Baytown, Texas Mayor #StephenDonCarlos in celebrating the dedication of the official Texas Historical Commission State Marker for the The Baytown Sun.
The #BaytownSun Newspaper marker is the FIRST in #HarrisCounty to be fully dedicated to the history of a local newspaper. The Baytown Sun has played in important role in telling the #LocalHistory of the #TriCities and Mister McKinney’s Historic Houston uses it as a major resource in researching the area’s past.
LEARN more about the City of Baytown – Government and the dedicated staff that document the local history daily, by reading the text from the #HistoricalMarker below……
“The Baytown Sun can trace its roots to the weekly newspaper The Goose Creek Gasser, established by Frank Boyer in 1919, two months before construction began on Humble Oil & Refining Company’s Baytown Refinery. The Gasser was created to serve the rapidly growing Tri-cities of Goose Creek, Pelly and Baytown, which evolved from oil boom towns to permanent community centered on the refinery. In 1924, new ownership the paper’s name to the semi-weekly tribune, and again in 1929 to the daily tribune, when it’s circulation was around 4,500. The financial strain of the great depression led the owners of Goose Creek’s Tribune, The Pelly Telegram, and Baytown’s Tri-Cities News-Herald to merge into a single paper, the Tri-Cities Sun, operating out of the Tribune’s building at 119 West Pearce. First published on July 19, 1931, it was renamed The Daily Sun two years later. Goose Creek, Pelly and Baytown consolidated in 1948, and the paper, renamed The Baytown Sun, became the sole daily newspaper in the old tri-cities area. In 1949, the facility was greatly expanded, including a new press and, for the first time an air conditioned work space. That year, The Sun surpassed a circulation of 8,000 and employed forty individuals.
In 1965 the sun moved to its current location at 1301 Memorial Drive. The first papers printed at the new location went out to more than 12,700 subscribers. Longtime Publishers and editors of the Sun included William Pendergraft (1933-44) Robert Matherne (1931-50), Fred Hartman (1935-74) and Preston Pendergrass (1954-1981). Since 1919, The Baytown Sun and its predecessors have primary focused on the area’s local news and history, while providing readers with matters of state, national and international importance.”
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Above text is from the #TexasHistoricalCommission Marker for the Baytown Sun Newspaper, dedicated, December 14th, 2017.
Harris County Historical Society Baytown Police Department, TX Baytown Chamber of Commerce Baytown Raised United Way of Greater Baytown Area & Chambers County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Baytown Ann Dunphy Becker Mary Ann Perez State Representative Mary Ann Perez
The Baytown area is special to me. The area called Cedar Bayou originated on land owned by my ancestor, one of the Old Three Hundred, Christian Columbus Smith.
Deana Hamby Nall
Alison Lee Shiets did you read this paper?
I subscribed while I lived there had friends who worked there and was on the front page once with a volunteer group.
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