About

Robert McAlpin Goodman and John Andrew Massey used a salvaged hand press to publish the first four-page issue of the Marietta Journal in December 1866. The paper gained a third owner in 1869 when William S. N. Neal, who joined as a typesetter in 1867, became part owner. Marietta, Georgia, was partially razed during the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, and the Journal was the city’s first legal organ in two years. As editor, Goodman chronicled Marietta’s recovery and editorialized against radical reconstruction. Goodman, however, he frequently expressed bitter sentiment regarding Georgia’s secession. In a trend that continued beyond Goodman’s tenure, the Journal only endorsed Democratic candidates for office until the mid-20th century.

Goodman, Massey, and Neal co-owned the paper until January 1875, when Goodman sold his shares to Massey and Neal. The two remaining owners managed the Journal for another 34 years. During most of that time, the Journal served as Cobb County’s legal organ, and the paper briefly carried legal advertisements for the nearby counties of Paulding and Pickens in the late 1870s. The Journal’s editors published articles in support of public school systems, child-labor laws, and prohibition. The paper was also a voice for white supremacy and supported policies of segregation and disenfranchisement.

On August 19, 1909, Massey and Neal sold the Journal to Josiah Carter, a notable Atlanta-based newspaper editor, who organized the paper under a stock company called the Marietta Publishing Company. Carter also acquired the Cobb County Courier, thus regaining the legal advertising rights the Journal lost in January 1909. He merged the titles as the Marietta Journal and Courier and purchased new equipment, which allowed expansion into a 12-page weekly. Josiah co-edited the paper with his wife, Annie L. Carter until his death in 1914. Their son, Josiah Carter Jr., who joined the paper earlier that year, then assisted his mother in the editorial department. When Cobb County became the site of Leo Frank’s lynching on August 17, 1915, the Journal and Courier celebrated the lynching and left lynchers unnamed in an editorial titled “A Life for A Life.”

David Comfort replaced Josiah Carter Jr. as editor in October 1918, and the paper’s title reverted to the Marietta Journal. Comfort managed the paper until William L. Harris took over as editor in chief in December 1920, and Harris bought out shareholders until he became sole owner. He transitioned the paper to a daily publishing cycle in 1935, creating the Marietta Daily Journal, and expanded again with a Sunday edition in April 1946. Despite the Journal’s success, it lost legal advertising rights to the Cobb County Times during this period. During Harris’ tenure, Marietta experienced rapid and transformative growth when the Bell Aircraft Corporation, or Bell Bomber, established a manufacturing center there in 1943. The population of Cobb County nearly doubled by 1950, and Marietta transformed from a semi-rural resort community outside of Atlanta into a major urban center.

In September 1948, a new stock company called the Marietta Journal Publishing Company acquired the paper from Harris. Brooks P. Smith took over editing responsibilities and managed the paper until Otis Brumby Sr. purchased it in 1951. Brumby published the weekly Times and daily Journal as separate publications until suspending the Times in 1968. Reflecting political realignments during the mid-20th century, the Marietta Daily Journal featured editorials that largely supported the Republican Party. Today, the paper is published by Otis Brumby III and serves as Cobb County’s legal organ.