Bee County Centennial 1858-1958
By Grace Bauer - Published by Bee County Centennial, Inc. 1958

BEE BUZZNGS FOR A CENTURY (24-25)

“Town lots for sale in Beeville, June 5, 1858,” was published in the Goliad Express, the nearest newspaper, one hundred years ago.

The county was twenty-eight years old when W. 0. McCurdy launched the first newspaper, which he christened the Beeville Bee on May 13, 1886. Bee County owes a debt of gratitude to her first editor for the worthy contributions of the Bee in preserving her history for twenty-seven years, and his widow, Mrs. Elizabeth McCurdy, for generously permitting my use of them. Whizzie Barry published this historic weekly for several years, after death silenced the pen that unerringly recorded the county’s first news.

El Grito Del Pueblo, Beeville’s second newspaper, was founded in 1888, by P. & P. Gonzales. It was a weekly four- pager in the nineties under the name El Sombre del Lincoln. I use a photostat copy in my book. The Bee reported the publication of El Amigo de los Hombres by I. R. Rodriguez in the nineties.

The Picayune, a short-lived daily and lasting weekly of the same name, appeared on Beeville streets in 1890, with Carl and M. M. McFarland, the publishers. Through the years, ownership transferred from J. K. Street, Thomas R. Atkins, Wright and Shannon, George Atkins, first, with R. W. Barron, and, later, with Fred Weber. Finally, the Beeville Publishing Company was formed in 1928, consolidating two newspapers, the Bee and Picayune. The Beeville Bee-Picayune, with Editor George Atkins, has won many awards in the weekly newspaper field for over half a century.

Other publications that appeared and died: Mac, Chauncey, and Tom Powell’s Young Reporter, Hugh Marr’s Bee County Banner (monthly), the Atchley’s bee journal, Southland Queen, the weekly American Citizen (1924), and Fred Strong’s Bee County News (1955).

Three other towns in Bee County had newspapers through the years. Skidmore boasted of three: the Skidmore Pioneer, published by Thomas R. Atkins in 1891 for eleven months; the Skidmore Signal, edited by Charles Blanton from 1907 to 1915; and the weekly Skidmore Breeze in 1907 and 1908.

The Normanna Nugget, a weekly, where Editor George Atkins launched his newspaper career in the county after the turn of the century, died, but his Beeville newspaper lives on.