History

The county’s first newspaper , the Woodbury Press was published from 1871 to 1874 by Bennett and Hight. From 1874 to 1876 the paper was published by W.C. Houston and John C. Cook. The paper ceased publication in 1881 and did not resume until 1883 under the name of The Cannon Courier. In 1886, Sterling Brown took over operation of the paper and changed the name to The Woodbury Herald for one year. It was renamed The Cannon Courier and was published under that name until 1897 when Jack L. Henerrson published it under the name of The Times. By 1900 the name had changed again to The Woodbury Press until 1906 when the name was once again changed to The Cannon Courier. Fire destroyed all the printing facilities, offices and files in 1934. A few scattered issues prior to the fire still exist and have been microfilmed for preservation. In 1931, Tom Woodward moved into Cannon County and began printing The Cannon County Times which was discontinued after about a year. Only one known copy of this paper exists and has been microfilmed.

The Tennessee Newspaper Project

The Tennessee Newspaper Project (TNP) is part of the United States Newspaper Program, a national effort to locate, catalog, preserve on microfilm, and make accessible, newspapers published in the United States from the earliest colonial days to the present. As a part of the online database, they maintain a current listing of all locations of old Cannon County Newspapers within the State of Tennessee. Currently, the database only includes the holdings of the Tennessee State Library and Archives and the University of Tennessee Libraries in Knoxville. As they finish the cataloging at those two sites, they will begin the fieldwork portion of the project during which catalogers will travel to the many other newspaper repositories in the state to catalog and inventory their newspaper holdings. To use the online database, search on the keyword Cannon.

Current Newspapers Published In Cannon Count

Many Tennessee newspapers are filmed and available at the TSLA. Most of these newspapers may be accessed by interlibrary loan to libraries within Tennessee, although there are some newspapers which are not available in or outside of Tennessee. For further information regarding interlibrary loan policies and newspapers not available for interlibrary loan click here. For a list of newspapers available at the archives for Cannon County click on the following towns: