Kerrville Mountain Sun
Kerrville, Kerr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The "Kerrville Mountain Sun" can trace its history to an 1870s publication known as "The Frontiersman." Later called "The News," "The Eye," and "The Paper," the "Mountain Sun" was given its current name by J. E. Grinstead after he purchased the newspaper in 1898. An adventurer, writer, and early photographer, Grinstead sold the "Mountain Sun" in 1917. In 1919 it came under the full ownership of brothers W. A. and Clarence Salter. Over the years, the "Kerrville Mountain Sun" has provided a significant service to the citizens of Kerrville. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986 Incise on base: Wife, son, grandson of W. A. Salter have continued ownership
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Kerrville Mountain Sun traces its lineage to an 1870s frontier paper called The Frontiersman, which passed through several names before J. E. Grinstead—an adventurer, writer, and early photographer—gave it its enduring title after buying the paper in 1898. Grinstead sold the paper in 1917, and by 1919 it came under the full ownership of brothers W. A. and Clarence Salter. The Salter family continued to run the paper across later generations.
Why it matters
As one of the Texas Hill Country's longest-running newspapers, the Mountain Sun shows how a local press could chronicle and knit together a community for well over a century.
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Related people
- · J. E. Grinstead
- · W. A. Salter
- · Clarence Salter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Guthrie Building
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Finished in 1887 for the sum of $2,600, this thick-walled limestone building is among the oldest surviving structures in Kerr County. It was built by Robert Guthrie, a Scottish-born publisher who carried on a family newspaper tradition, housing his Kerrville Eye and a hotel upstairs. Over the following decades it passed through a succession of editors and civic leaders—Ed Smallwood, Jesse Grinstead—and later served as Kerrville's City Hall and a photographic studio, its Italianate stonework surviving into a careful restoration.
Captain Charles Schreiner
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Born in France in 1838, Charles Schreiner emigrated as a boy, rode with the Texas Rangers, and fought for the Confederacy before opening a Kerrville general store in 1869. From that counter he built an empire — banking, ranching, and the marketing of wool and mohair through one of Texas's first such warehouses — until by 1900 he owned some 600,000 acres. A noted philanthropist, he founded the Schreiner Institute that still bears his name.
Masonic Building
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Built of locally quarried limestone, this late Italianate building went up after Charles Schreiner formed the Kerrville Masonic Company in 1890, its façade dressed with arched openings, stone quoins, and a pressed-metal cornice. Kerrville Lodge No. 697 met on the second floor until 1927, when it moved out and leased the space to the Odd Fellows. The ground floor served the town in turn as post office, C.C. Butt Grocery, and Texas Power and Light, and the property stayed in the Schreiner family until 1959.
Early Settlers of Kerr County
Kerrville, TX
Kentucky-born Joshua D. Brown came to Texas in 1830, did military duty for the Republic, and in 1846 led ten shingle makers to the cypress-rich headwaters of the Guadalupe, building a camp of picket houses to hand-rive shingles despite the danger of Indian raids. His shingle trade was the first industry on the site of Kerrville; Brown bought 2,640 acres, donated the townsite, and insisted the county be named for his friend, surveyor James Kerr.