About

E. Y. Clark, former managing editor of the Atlanta Constitution, organized a stock company named the Post Publishing Company in September 1878. On October 1, 1878, he published the first issue of the Atlanta Daily Post, which he billed as the 'cheapest daily in the South.' Its four-dollar subscription fee made it at least the cheapest daily in the capital as the Atlanta Constitution carried a ten-dollar rate. Clark’s price gamble appeared to pay off, because he was able to add a weekly edition in 1879. In 1880, David E. Caldwell bought controlling interest in the Post, and changed the title to the Atlanta Post-Appeal. This arrangement lasted only a year before Caldwell sold out to E. H. Dewitt and M. F. Thorton in 1882, and they again expanded the paper with a Sunday edition. Between 1882 and 1883, the Post was reduced to only a weekly edition. It isn’t clear why the apparently growing paper shrunk, but the Atlanta Evening Journal’s appearance in February 1883 did present the Post with a formidable and well-funded competitor. Prior to the Journal’s emergence, the Post had little competition in the evening daily newspapers slot. E. Y. Clark, who always maintained partial ownership in the paper, returned as editor and proprietor in 1883. He published two papers, the Monday Morning Mail and Atlanta Weekly Post, until 1886 when he merged the titles to form the Mail and Post. The Post continued to circulate, with reduced subscriptions, until it eventually ceased publication in the early 1890s.