About

On August 1, 1912, Bowdre Phinizy, T. J. Sheron, William G. Gredig, and J. C. Latimer petitioned to incorporate the Athens Herald Publishing Company as a stock company in Athens, Georgia. The company appointed Latimer as business manager while Gredig managed editorial duties, and they published the first issue of the Athens Daily Herald in late August, 1912. Mirroring the Athens Banner format almost exactly, The Herald was a 13-column, Democratic daily, that carried a subscription cost of five dollars. By 1915, the Herald’s circulation exceeded 3,000 which placed the paper on even ground with the equally popular Athens Banner. Eugene Winston Carroll, former owner of the Jackson Argus, joined the Herald in 1915 as business manager and replaced Gredig as editor in 1917. Carroll also held stock in the Herald, and acted as part owner, publisher, and editor of the paper until 1922. Carroll’s wife, Willie Victoria Carroll, edited the “women’s section” of the Herald. By mid-1921, the Athens Daily Herald and the Athens Banner shared the same parent stock company, the Athens Publishing Company. The largest share owners of this company were Bowdre Phinizy, A. C. Erwin, J. B. Joel, and Blanton Forton, but the two papers were effectively run by Earl B. Braswell. Braswell was joined by H. P. Brennan and R. F. Read at the Herald and Charles E. Martin at the Banner. On June 26, 1921, the two papers began published merged Sunday edition of the Banner-Herald. Separate daily editions of the Athens papers continued to circulate until the Herald’s last issue published on February 9, 1923. On February 12, 1923, the dailies combined under the Banner-Herald title. In 1933, the Banner-Herald became the Athens Banner-Herald and continues to publish under that masthead today as Athens’ legal organ.