About

Based on publisher reporting and volume numbering, The Butts County Progress traces its origins to the Jackson News, which was founded by W. E. Harp in 1882. In the mid-1890s, the News ceased publication but reemerged as the Jackson Record. The Record became the Jacksonian in 1907 and then the Butts County Progress that same year, with Van Wilhite as sole editor and publisher. Wilhite listed the Progress as an independent local paper, and the paper remained that way until J. D. Jones aligned the paper with the Democratic Party in 1910. For five years the Progress was a fierce competitor to the Jackson Argus, and this competition can be found in year-to-year circulation reports. In 1910, the Progress submitted a circulation report of 769 compared to the Argus’ publisher’s report of 750. Each successive year until J.D. Jones purchased the Jackson Argus on July 2, 1915, one could expect the two papers to outpace each other with larger circulation reports. In their final year as independent publications, the Progress reported 1,500 subscribers compared to the Argus’ 1,350. The newspaper continues today as the Jackson Progress-Argus and Jackson, Georgia’s legal organ.