Hattiesburg Daily News Archive

Hattiesburg, in south Mississippi, was founded by lawyer and regional railroad magnate, William H. Hardy, in the mid-1880s. The town was established near the confluence of the Leaf and Bouie Rivers on the line of the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad connecting New Orleans with Meridian, Mississippi. The seat of Forrest County, Hattiesburg was named after Hardy's wife, Hattie.

By 1901, the four-page Hattiesburg Daily Progress, established by William H. Seitzler, was the first daily paper published in Hattiesburg. A preceding title, the Hattiesburg Progress had been distributed semi-weekly as early as 1897. Shortly after publishing a personal editorial in the August 3, 1903 issue of the Daily Progress regarding readers' canceling their subscriptions because of political disagreements with him, Seitzler sold the paper to James J. Haynie. While there are no extant issues from 1904 to 1907, N. W. Ayer & Son's American Newspaper Annual 1907 edition indicates that the Progress was still being published during this period, but under a William Moffett Jr.

The Hattiesburg Daily News, another Democratic newspaper and the rival of the Progress, was an eight-page daily founded by the Hattiesburg Publishing Company in 1907. Frank R. Birdsall, and Herbert A. Camp, both former editors of the Greenwood, Mississippi journal, the Commonwealth (1896-1923), were original stockholders of the company; Edgar G. Harris joined later. The Daily News initially ran as a morning paper, but because the owners found it more cost effective to print later in the day, the paper changed to an afternoon edition. The May 17, 1908 issue of the Hattiesburg News informed readers of the transition and began to publish under its new title. Financial constraints led William Moffett to temporarily cease publication of the Progress in 1908 and eventually to combine his newspaper with the Hattiesburg News; the April 06, 1909 issue of the News announced the consolidation. Towards the end of 1917, Howard S. Williams purchased the Hattiesburg News and changed its title to the Hattiesburg American, which is still published today.

Coverage in the Hattiesburg News included information that affected the local economy. Known as the Pine Belt, southern Mississippi was home to large tracts of yellow pine. With the arrival of the railroads in the 1880s and demand for lumber in northern states the lumber industry boomed. In 1908, after a fire destroyed one of the largest lumber mills in the region, the J. J. Newman Lumber Company, the October 5 issue of the News announced the rebuilding of the mill. Another local catastrophe occurred the same year. One of the most damaging tornadoes in Mississippi history narrowly missed Hattiesburg, but destroyed the nearby town of Purvis. The April 25, 1908 issue of the Daily News gave details of the storm's aftermath and called for citizens to aid in relief "Let every citizen give something, however small the amount, Hattiesburg's duty will have been done." The United States involvement in World War I in 1917 prompted the construction of a military training camp just south of Hattiesburg. The September 21, 1917 issue of the News, a Camp Shelby souvenir edition, provided a glimpse of life at Camp Shelby through photographs and detailed a typical day for the soldiers. In addition to local intelligence, the News had state, national, and political coverage and contained domestic and social columns including Betty Brown's "Advice to Girls."