About

Colonel E. F. Hoge, a notable lawyer and member of the Georgia General Assembly, published the first issue of the Evening Journal on February 23, 1883 in Atlanta, Georgia. The newspaper began by publishing a four-page issue every evening except Sunday at a subscription cost of five dollars. The paper politically aligned with the principles of the Democratic Party and maintained this support throughout the political realignments of the 20th century. Prior to the Journal’s founding, Atlanta’s preeminent newspaper was the Atlanta Constitution, and the Journal’s evening circulation did not overlap with the Constitution’s morning publishing cycle. When Atlanta’s nationally-recognized hotel, the Kimball House, burned on August 12, 1883, the Journal rose to prominence by being the first newspaper to report the incident; Hoge published an extra edition covering the fire and employed hundreds of newsboys to distribute the paper. While Hoge held majority ownership of the Journal, the paper was organized under a stock company called the Journal Publishing Company. Hoge acted as editor-in-chief, and Charles S. Atwood was the paper’s general manager. In 1885, the Journal expanded by adding an eight-page weekly edition that circulated on Thursdays for fifty cents per issue. That same year, an ailing Hoge sold his controlling interest to John Paul Jones and F. F. Wilson. Jones then purchased the remainder of Hoge’s shares after Hoge’s death on August 10, 1885. On June 1, 1887, Jones, now sole proprietor of the paper, sold the Atlanta Journal to a newly organized stock company headed by Hoke Smith (president), Henry H. Cabaniss (business manager), and Josiah Carter (editor-in-chief). Other shareholders in what came to be called the Atlanta Journal Company included Henry Jackson, Frank Rice, Charles A. Collier, W. H. Parsons, Jacob Hass, and R. M. Pulsifer. All members of the company were prominent Atlanta residents, and the Atlanta Journal experienced significant growth from the ensuing capital. By late 1887, the paper became the first Southern newspaper to publish a daily woman’s page. Josiah Carter was editor-in-chief, until his replacement by F. H. Richardson, formerly of the Macon Telegraph, in January 1891. In 1892, after strongly advocating for presidential candidate Grover Cleveland in the Journal’s pages, Hoke Smith became Secretary of the Interior, but retained his shares in the paper. The Atlanta Journal gained another edge over the Atlanta Constitution in 1894 when the Associated Press gave the Journal exclusive rights to their full day report. In 1898, the paper’s weekly edition became a semi-weekly which carried a one dollar subscription fee. The Atlanta Semi-weekly Journal went on to circulation until March 9, 1920 when it expanded into the Atlanta Tri-weekly Journal. Another significant ownership change took place in April 1900 when James R. Gray, Morris Brandon, and H. M. Atkinson, bought the Atlanta Journal Corporation for $276,500, a far cry from the $10,000 Hoke Smith and company paid in 1887. As a result of the purchase, James R. Gray replaced F. H. Richardson as editor-in-chief and held that role until his death in 1917. John S. Cohen became president and editor, a position he maintained until his own death in 1935. The Atlanta Journal continued its steady growth by absorbing the Atlanta Daily News, a rival evening daily, in October 1901. In 1902, the paper published daily, semi-weekly, and Sunday edition. A long list of noteworthy writers were employed by the publication including Corra Harris, Margaret Mitchell, Olin Miller, Ward Greene, Grantland Rice, Ward Morehouse, Rogers Winter, and Harold Ross. Atlanta’s WSB radio began broadcasting from the roof of the Journal building in 1922 and eventually broadcasted the first television show in the South in September 1948. In December 1939, James Middleton Cox, purchased the Atlanta Georgian and Atlanta Journal (including the WSB station) as part of the expansion of Cox Enterprises into Georgia media; Cox discontinued the Georgian and moved the assets of that paper to the Atlanta Journal. In 1950, 70 years of rivalry came to an end when the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution came under the same parent company, Atlanta Newspapers, Inc. The titles continued to publish under individual titles, however, until officially becoming the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2001. The newspaper continues to publish today as Fulton County’s paper of record.