The Clifton Mirror Newspaper
Clifton, Tennessee – Friday, Dec. 9, 1904 – Vol. 24, No. 9, Page 1
The newspaper history of Wayne County dates from before the civil war. Just antecedent to this great conflict Wm. Morris published the Gazette at Waynesboro. Our informant could not tell us much about the Gazette. It was a 6 column folio all home print, as there were no patents in those days, and also, of course, was printed on a Washington hand press. It went down during the storm period of ’61-4.
In 1867, however, twelve ambitious capitalists of Wayne county contributed $100 each and a stock company was organized for the purpose of publishing a larger and more pretentious paper than had hitherto been attempted in this section. An outfit was purchased at Columbia and the Waynesboro Gazette was launched under flattering auspices, the capital of the county, as before, being selected as the seat of publication. The incorporators were C.C. Stribling, D.S. Skillern, John Jackson, G.A. Talley, P.H. Craig, Wm. Burns, John G. Berry, W.J. Sims, John H. Cole, R.P. Cypert, A.T. Hassell and Matthew Collier. The last mentioned six of this notable band of twelve have passed over the river. The other six, with the exception of Wm. Burns, still reside in Wayne County and are prosperous and highly respected citizens of the communities in which they live.
The Gazette outfit consisted of a fair assortment of body and display type and the inevitable Washington hand press. C.C. Stribling was made business manager of the concern. Tom Malone and Hiram, his brother, were editor and foreman respectively at a joint salary of $150 a month. Will Berry, Elihu Grimes and Will Boswell were type setters. The subscription price of the Gazette was $2 a year. The advertising rates were $100 a column per year. The paper was a seven column folio, and at that time was the most pretentious sheet published between Columbia on the north and Jackson on the east (west). In fact, it was the only paper published within these bounds, with the exception of a small affair at Lawrenceburg.
In those halcyon newspaper days the art preservative had not been cheapened by the introduction of a flood of low-grade and low-price so-called family storypapers, and the local newspapers occupied a position of commanding influence. Taken as a whole the subscription price of the Gazette, and its advertising and job rates were about twice what the country paper of today can command. As a matter of business logic the subscription price of the country newspaper of today should be $2 a year. The smallest, measliest country weekly in the world is worth that much to the community in which it is published. The city weeklies are a rehash of the daily editions. They have the whole country to draw on and reach out for enormous circulations in order to reap a golden harvest of advertising. They are at no extra cost for typesetting for the weekly, as the matter is simply transferred from the daily. They figure on putting their weekly at a price that will just about cover the cost of press work and white paper, relying on their adverting for the profit.
It is largely the same with the cheap monthlies and family story papers. They get immense circulatious through offering their publications at about the actual cost of production and reap their profits from their advertising, which they draw from all sections of the country.
The case is different with the country weekly. It operates essentially in a limited local field. Very few country newspapers have a circulation of over one thousand copies. Because of their local circulation they can get but a small amount of foreign advertising. They must depend almost entirely on the business enterprise and patriotism of the home community, and if that fails them they are indeed in sore straits.
So it will be seen that it is obviously unfair to attempt to establish the same standard for the metropolitan and country weekly, and when we hear a man deriding his local paper because it is not up to the standard of the New York Bazoo in quality and price, or complain that he can get the Woman’s Home Story Teller for 25 cents a year whereas he has to pay one dollar for his home paper, which hasn’t got half as much reading matter in it, we feel like summonsing our Fool-killer and giving him the command to slay and spare not. But to return to our mutton.
The Waynesboro Gazette ran only one year. At the end of that period it was discovered that the receipts and expenditures just about balanced, and the plant was sold to some Savannah parties, who moved it to that town and started the “Tennessee River News. The News was edited by Thomas H. Payne, a gentleman of considerable note. At various times Mr. Payne held the position of State Superintendent of Public Instruction and State Comptroller. He died about a year ago.
In 1872 C.C. Stribling, Thomas Warren and Robt. T. Cypert made another venture on the tempestuous sea of newspaperdom. They purchased the old Henry Watterson outfit at Columbia and started the Wayne County Citizen at Waynesboro. In about a year the paper was moved to Clifton. At that time Clifton was a town of about 300 people, but was fast coming into prominence as a trading point. In 1875 the paper was sold toDr. Henry Blakemore. Subsequently it changed hands several times. Finally Messrs.. Tom S. Hughes, C.C. Stribling and T.S. Hassell bought the plant and Mr. Joe W. Cooper was placed in charge of it. Mr. Cooper ran it until 1897, when he went to Savannah, and Messrs. Sam J. Stockard, Jr. and J.B. Ozment took charge of the Citizen. They ran it about a year and were succeeded by Otis Pettus. Stockard is now on the Cairo Daily Bulletin and Ozment is with the Centerville News.
In September 1898 a destructive fire visited Clifton and among the building burned was the newspaper office. In a short time the Clifton Herald was established by Messrs. Jim and Frank Stockard, but in about a year fire again wiped the newspaper out of existence. In 1901 Rev. J.S. McCluney brought an outfit from Savannah and started the News. He ran it about six months and then accepted a call to preach in Illinois. Joe W. Cooper then took charge of the paper and ran it until the spring of 1903, when he suspended the paper to accept the position of mail carrier on Rural Route No. 2 leading out of Clifton. On October 14, 1904, the Mirror was started under the present management, acquiring the Fews (News) outfit and adding materially to it, thus being equipped with the most modern outfit in this section of the state.
It will be seen from this hasty review that Clifton has experienced many newspaper changes. Yet amid all the vicissitudes of fickle fortune the one idea has been kept steadily in view that no matter what comes or goes the town must have a newspaper to reflect its social, moral and business life. The Mirror is published on a more extensive scale than any of it predecessors. This is but natural, as we are living in a world of growth. While this is an age of keen competition and close prices we reason that the best in any line is what the people demand, and it is the ambition of the Mirror management to merit the support of the public by publishing a clean, wholesome, bright paper, doing artistic job work and generally conducting our publishing business along modern, enterprising business lines.