Dallas Herald - Second Dallas Herald (1886-1888)

Second Dallas Herald (1886-1888)

The Herald papers had been missing from the Dallas scene for barely more than a month when an item appeared in the Morning News on January 14, 1886 noting that “the first number of the Dallas Daily Herald made its appearance last evening. It is a crisp, bright paper of twenty-eight columns, in a nice new dress . . . .” Meanwhile the Morning News continued running daily notices from Herald Publishing Company and A. H. Belo & Co. (publishers of the Morning News), dated November 30, 1885, to the effect that the Herald had turned over its subscription list to the Morning News and that the Morning News would fulfill those subscriptions with its own editions and solicited former Herald subscribers to become Morning News subscribers. These notices did not cease until early April.

M. H. Claytor operated this Herald for a few months. Claytor had been manager of the San Antonio Evening Times and in his Herald editorials often advocated for prohibition. On June 7, 1886 it was acquired by Lafayette Lumpkin Foster, a journalist and then speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.

Foster was joined that fall by Charles Edwin Gilbert, secretary of the Texas Press Association and editor of the Abilene Reporter in Abilene, Texas. Gilbert's Herald differed from its major competitor, the Morning News, by sometimes publishing one or more extra editions to report important news and in its appearance: while the Morning News was producing pages of solid gray type broken only by advertising, the Herald used wider columns and broke up its columns with small illustrations. Gilbert also was a prohibitionist and would not accept advertising for beer or other alcohol.

The paper lasted through the next year but merged with the Dallas Times to form the Daily Times-Herald, which began publication on January 2, 1888 and which eventually was renamed the Dallas Times Herald and dropped the hyphen.