Enterprise-Journal

Near this spot on November 6, 1880, the first Beaumont Enterprise came off the press. Founded by John W. Leonard, it is southeast Texas' oldest business institution. The Beaumont Journal, founded in August 1889 by Robert Emmett Kelley, was the second oldest newspaper in the area. Under the same ownership since 1921, the two papers served a Texas-Louisiana community extending from the Trinity River on the west to the Red River on the east, and from the Redlands on the north to the Gulf of Mexico. They attained national stature under James L. and Kathryn Smythe Mapes, Alabama natives who came to the Enterprise in 1908 and acquired the business in 1931. Jim Mapes was president of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association for two years. When he died in 1936, he willed stock to key employees. Mrs. Mapes then served as president, and upon her death in 1948 left the majority stock in trust to her grandnephew, Robert E. Myers. Impartial presentation of the news and responsibility to the public welfare continued as the hallmarks of The Enterprise and The Journal.

Beaumont, Texas · United States