The Covington Leader Archive

Printer Lorenzo D. Hamner founded the Covington Leader in 1886 to serve the residents of Tipton County, Tennessee. Hamner was joined in his venture by publisher and editor S.A. Montgomery. The Independent Democratic weekly competed directly with the Tipton Weekly Record, also an Independent Democratic paper, established in 1867.

In 1888, Joseph W. Simonton became the Leader's co-publisher and editor, and later in the 1890s, A.P. Taylor joined the partnership. By 1894, the newspaper circulated to approximately 1,400 readers every Friday. The Leader provided a balance of local and national news. During World War One, there were reports on the fighting overseas as well as stories on the war's impact locally. The front page of the November 14, 1918 issue carried both news from Europe of the armistice and an account of celebrations outside the courthouse in Covington.

In addition to news of local events, club notices, birth and death announcements, and classified ads, the Leader published content that it purchased from news syndicates, such as poetry and literary articles. Members of the Simonton family served as writers, editors, publishers, and owners of the Leader from 1888 until 1965. William C."Bill" Simonton devoted 32 years of service to the paper, working in nearly every department of the business. In 2009, he was inducted into the Tennessee Newspaper Hall of Fame. The Simonton family sold the Leader in1965to Carl A. Jones of Johnson City, the owner of several newspapers in Tennessee. The Covington Leader was one of the first wave of newspapers to switch from hot metal to cold type composition, also known as desktop publishing, and also was the first to change from letterpress to offset printing. After 1970, the publishers continued to embrace new technologies, and the paper is now published online.