The Rusk Cherokeean
Rusk, Cherokee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The first newspaper in Rusk was the short-lived Rusk Pioneer, which began in 1848 and moved to Palestine the following year. On February 27, 1850, the first issue of the Cherokee Sentinel was published. This is the publication to which the current Cherokeean/Herald can trace its origin. After the Civil War, the name of the weekly paper was changed to the Texas Observer, and it was at this paper, as a typesetter, that Texas' first native governor, James Stephen Hogg, began his work in the newspaper business. This weekly publication underwent a series of name changes and consolidations over the years but remained in continuous operation. Among its significant publishers have been: Samuel A. Willson, a noted judge, who was appointed by Governor Richard Coke to help codify the laws of Texas under the 1876 Constitution; John Benjamin Long, a U.S. Congressman, state legislator and mayor of Rusk; and state representative Wallace M. Ellis. They and other publishers and editors have kept the citizens of Rusk and Cherokee County informed of news and events throughout the years. The Rusk Cherokeean published its first issue in 1919 and purchased the Press Journal (a successor to the Cherokee Sentinel) in 1923. In 1959, the paper's name was shortened to the Cherokeean. It has been known as the Cherokeean/Herald since a merger with the Alto Herald in 1989. At the beginning of the 21st century, the publication could lay claim as the oldest, continuously operated, weekly newspaper in Texas. (2001) Text of supplemental plate: June 1, 1950, Emmett and Marie Whitehead bought this newspaper from Frank and Marie Main. They and their family have owned it since.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Rusk's newspaper tradition reaches back to the Cherokee Sentinel, first published in 1850, from which today's Cherokeean/Herald traces its lineage through a long chain of name changes and mergers. Among the young men who once set type here was James Stephen Hogg, the first native-born governor of Texas. Publishers over the generations included judges, a U.S. congressman, and state legislators, keeping the paper in continuous operation into the 21st century as one of the oldest weeklies in Texas.
Why it matters
It documents the vital role of the small-town press in frontier and post-Civil War America, and its link to a future Texas governor who began at the typesetter's case.
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Related people
- · James Stephen Hogg
- · Samuel A. Willson
- · John Benjamin Long
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cherokee County C.S.A.
Rusk, TX
During the Civil War, Cherokee County became a busy Confederate manufacturing and supply hub, with shops making wagons and harnesses, a gun factory turning out rifles and pistols, iron works casting tools, and salt and commissary works feeding the war effort. It also held Union prisoners and drilled raw recruits at a camp of instruction. Some two thousand county men served the Confederacy, among them Brigadier General Joseph L. Hogg, who died in Mississippi in 1862.
Cherokee County Courthouse
Rusk, TX
Built in 1940–41 with help from the federal Works Progress Administration, this is the fourth courthouse to serve Cherokee County. Designed by the firm of Gill & Bennett, its Moderne form rises in native red and white limestone, with a central block flanked by wings and adorned with sleek Art Deco grillwork. It stands as a Depression-era public-works landmark at the county seat of Rusk.
Norman Law Firm
Rusk, TX
In 1898 Cherokee County natives Wyatt Thomas Norman and William Harrison Shook opened a law office on the Rusk courthouse square, taking on partner George Gibson in 1918 and later spreading to a Jacksonville branch. Through more than a century the practice kept the Norman name and represented both ordinary individuals and national corporations. It became a training ground for judges, politicians, and civic leaders at every level of Texas government.
Old Bonner Bank Building
Rusk, TX
Raised in 1865 by a New Orleans cotton promoter, this Rusk building soon housed the law office of S. A. Wilson, who helped codify Texas law under the 1876 constitution before rising to the state appeals bench. In the 1880s attorney and Tyler banker F. W. Bonner opened Cherokee County's first bank here, serving the short-lived industrial boomtown of New Birmingham. The Bonner name stuck through later uses as a school and more.