The Bastrop Advertiser
Bastrop, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In June 1852, Bastrop's Colorado Reveille Newspaper ended its brief run. In December of that year, William J. Cain, a young printer from Mississippi, bought the press and printing materials and started the Bastrop Advertiser. The newspaper began as a weekly publication from a shop on Main Street in March 1853. Thomas C. Cain took over the business when his brother retired, and his son, T.W. Cain, followed him as owner and editor. In 1920, Cain sold the paper, which was later owned by the J.O. Smith Family of Elgin. Except for a period during the Civil War, the paper has continuously served Bastrop residents. Through the years, the paper has focused on the area's news and rich history. (2003)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After Bastrop's short-lived Colorado Reveille folded in mid-1852, young Mississippi printer William J. Cain bought its press and launched the Bastrop Advertiser as a weekly from a Main Street shop in March 1853. The paper stayed in the Cain family for generations — passing from William to his brother Thomas and then to Thomas's son — before its 1920 sale to the Smith family of Elgin. Apart from an interruption during the Civil War, it has served Bastrop continuously ever since.
Why it matters
As one of Texas's long-running newspapers, the Bastrop Advertiser shows how a local press could chronicle and bind a community across more than a century and a half of change.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William J. Cain
- · Thomas C. Cain
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Kesselus Building
Bastrop, TX
William Kesselus, a German immigrant, arrived in Bastrop in 1853 and set up as a tailor. In 1891 this building replaced his earlier frame shop, and his son Will carried on the business until 1919. It later held a succession of mercantile stores and stands as a marker of German influence in Bastrop.
Kleinert Building
Bastrop, TX
Prussian immigrant Carl Kleinert and his wife Marie settled in Bastrop in the early 1860s, joining a sizable community of German merchants. In 1868 he built this grocery and mercantile, which after an 1890s fire gained the pressed-metal cornices, cast-iron columns, and wood storefront it still wears. The building stayed in the Kleinert family until 1931 and has since housed a succession of businesses.
Home Town of Texas Confederate Major Joseph D. Sayers
Bastrop, TX
Joseph D. Sayers enlisted at Bastrop as a private in 1861 and rose through the Confederate ranks, winning a captaincy for gallantry at Valverde and organizing an artillery battery from cannons captured there. Wounded repeatedly in the Red River campaigns and the fighting in Louisiana, he served as a staff officer to Generals Tom Green and Richard Taylor. He returned home on crutches and later became a state senator, lieutenant governor, U.S. congressman, and, from 1899 to 1903, governor of Texas during the Spindletop oil strike and the Galveston hurricane.
Bastrop Opera House
Bastrop, TX
Built in 1889 by D. S. Green and P. O. Elzner, the Bastrop Opera House brought traveling drama and opera troupes, musicians, and other performers to a small Central Texas town hungry for entertainment. Its three-part facade with pilastered bays marked it as a place of occasion, and over the years it hosted not just shows but graduations and school proms. The merchant Elzner became its sole owner in 1901.