The Barnesville News-Gazette was founded by E.T. Pound and Charles Lambdin in 1867. Despite many changes of hands and a merger with the competition, it has published a weekly newspaper since then.
In 1870, Pound and Lambdin were charging $2 a year for subscriptions; today it is $25, a bargain among local newspapers.
Pound and a partner surnamed Beverly were the publishers in 1874, followed by J.C. McMichael in 1878-84 and 1886-87. Henry R. Harris Jr. was the publisher in 1886.
Leading the Gazette in 1891 were McMichael and B.H. Hardy, followed by E.N. Mills and a partner named Gordy in 1899. Mills had it by himself in 1900 when Thad Adams became the editor.
Hardy returned to the paper as publisher in 1905, holding the position until 1941. William W. Dennis became publisher in August 1945 and operated the newspaper through 1978 when it was sold to Bob Tribble of Manchester. He sold to the competing Barnesville Herald on Feb. 6, 1980.
The Barnesville Herald was founded Feb. 7, 1979 with Frank Heflin as publisher and Mike Bradford as editor. In the spring of that year, Quimby Melton Jr., publisher of the Griffin Daily News and contiguous weekly newspapers, bought the Barnesville Herald and named Walter and Laura M. Geiger managers. She is a fourth generation newspaper publisher.
The Herald Gazette resulted with Melton’s merger of the News-Gazette and the Herald in 1980. It moved from a house next door to Lamar State Bank on Thomaston Street to an office at 19 Market Street. In 1982 he established a central facility on Greenwood Street to print area newspapers. They later moved the newspaper office to that building where it is located today.
Under the Geigers’ leadership, The Herald Gazette became one of the first weekly newspapers to have an online presence, debuting this site in 1996. Having undergone a major overhaul in 2009, the site has become one of the web’s most popular news sites, reaching the milestone of having over one million hits in November 2008.
The Geigers celebrated their 35th anniversary as publishers of The Herald Gazette in spring of 2014.
Compiled in part by local historian Shanna English