Americus Times-Recorder Archive 

Prominent Americus citizen and lawyer, Merrel Callaway, and J. R. Christian, established the Americus Tri-Weekly Recorder in mid-May 1879 in Americus, Georgia; the four-page paper carried a subscription rate of four dollars. Although the older Sumter Republican retained legal advertising for Sumter County, the Recorder became neighboring Webster County's paper of record. Callaway editorially advocated for the Democratic Party, but he set a precedent by promoting Americus and Southwest Georgia issues. William L. Glessner purchased the Recorder in December 1881 with the intention of making Americus "the commercial centre of Southwest Georgia." By 1884, assisted by H. C. Storey, Glessner transitioned to daily circulation, and the Americus Daily Recorder became Sumter County's legal organ in February 1885.

In January 1890, a stock company led by Callaway established the Americus Times as a daily morning paper. R. H. Brumby and J. W. Furlow served as editors for the Times, which quickly became a direct competitor to the Recorder. Americus proved unable to sustain two daily papers, and both titles suspended publication in March 1891. Bascom Myrick, however, organized a merger, and the combined Americus Times-Recorder appeared in April 1891. Myrick became editor in chief and business manager while Glessner, Alf Harper, and Furlow assisted him. After the merger, Glesser wrote, "one good paper, well sustained, will do more for Americus than two papers fighting for an existence."

Following Bascom Myrick's death on August 8, 1895, his wife, Marie Louise Myrick, took over as the paper's owner, publisher, and editor, briefly becoming the only woman in Georgia to hold such a title. She managed the Times-Recorder for 12 years before retiring in March 1907 and selling the publication to Thomas Gamble Jr., a future mayor of Savannah. Gamble published the paper with the assistance of Furlow and C. H. Lowe until Frank T. Long took over in late 1912. Quimby Melton, son of Georgia's future Poet Laureate Wightman F. Melton, joined the Times-Recorder in June 1913. Under Quimby Melton's direction, the newspaper transitioned into an afternoon publishing cycle. Melton departed in August 1915, and several managing editors passed through the Times-Recorder offices, including Cranston Williams, Frank Mangum, William S. Kirkpatrick, and, finally, Lovelace Eve. Eve joined the Times-Recorder Publishing Company in November 1918 and became sole owner of the newspaper by 1922.

After a banking panic in July 1926 affected advertising revenue, Eve was forced to shutter the Times-Recorder in late 1928, but William Prescott Allen revived the paper when he acquired its materials at a sheriff's auction in 1929. Allen subsequently sold out to a newspaper syndicate in January 1931. This syndicate appointed James R. Blair, an Americus resident, as managing editor, and he eventually purchased the newspaper in 1936. The Blair family owned the Times-Recorder until the 1980s, when Thomson Newspapers bought the paper and later sold it to Community Newspapers, Inc. To this day, the Americus Times-Recorder is owned by Boone Newspapers, Inc. andcontinues to serve as the legal organ for Americus and Sumter County.