The Springdale News Archive

The city of Springdale stretches over two counties, Washington and Benton, in northwest Arkansas. Springdale attracted European settlers in the early 1800s due to the abundance of natural resources. Many of the first homes and the town church burned during the Civil War. In 1881, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad built a track through town and Springdale began shipping out carloads of fruit. By the 1930s, Springdale businesses included a roller mill, grape juice plant, winery, distillery, and canneries. In 1924, Joe Steele founded the Steele Canning Company, which became one of the largest private canning companies in the world. Another largescale business founded in Springdale, the Tyson Foods Company, began in the 1930s under John Tyson. By 1940, Arkansas was the largest producer of chicken in the United States.

John Pleasant Stafford worked as an apprentice at the first newspaper in Springdale, the Springdale Enterprise, in the early 1880s (1881-1883). In 1887, he purchased The Arkansas Locomotive (1886-1887) in Springdale. Later that year, he started his own paper, The Springdale News. Stafford was only 18 years old when he established the News and was said to be the youngest newspaper publisher in Arkansas. Stafford's first office for the News had only a few fonts, a cheap job press, and an "army" press in a 14-foot square room in a frame building downtown. In 1890, he installed a typewriter. Stafford found it difficult to collect money from his advertisers and subscribers. To remedy this, he accepted goods like loads of wood to heat his office in exchange for newspapers.

In addition to running the paper, Stafford was involved in the community by serving on boards of local organizations and performing in the city band. He also worked in state government and served two terms in the state legislature. In 1929, he was elected president of the Arkansas Press Association. Stafford had seven children, all of whom worked at the paper over the years. John Stafford died in 1933, and his son Edward "Marty" Stafford took over as editor of the News.

The Springdale News was originally a four-page paper published weekly. The paper published a daily edition for a short run, but it quickly returned to the once-a-week publication schedule. The News again temporarily published daily editions in 1898 to report telegraphed news from the Spanish-American War. In 1904 and 1909, Stafford attempted publishing the News twice a week, but not until 1928 did the News consistently appear twice a week every week. The most popular section of the paper was the information from correspondents around Arkansas who reported news from their cities, including Johnson, Spring Valley, and Elm Springs.

In 1990, The Springdale News became The Morning News (1990-1994). In 1994, the paper merged with the Northwest Arkansas Morning News (1978-1994) to form The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas (1994-current), which is still in publication.