With the coming of the railroad to Beeville in the spring of 1886, Mississippi native William Oscar McCurdy (1866-1913) visited his aunt and uncle there and, after spending several days, decided to stay, becoming a citizen of the community and starting Beeville’s first newspaper. After receiving a loan from his uncle and a subscription list from the local sheriff, McCurdy set up the Beeville Bee on nearby St. Mary's Street, where the first shop was said to be so small that the publisher could stand in the center of the room and reach almost anything he needed. The Beeville Bee later relocated to various locations around town before finally occupying a concrete block building on N. Washington Street. In early 1890, brothers Carl and M.M. McFarland from Victoria started the other local newspaper, the Beeville Picayune, on the courthouse square. Thomas R. Atkins (1841-1915), the first historian of Bee County and a longtime resident of Beeville, acquired the Picayune in exchange for his Skidmore hotel in December 1894; he had also been one of the earliest postmasters in Beeville and was elected Justice of the Peace of Precinct No. 1 in 1870. After hard times forced Atkins to sell the paper in 1903, the Picayune was purchased on October 1, 1907, by his son, George H. Atkins, who served as publisher for 52 years until his death. In May 1928, George H. Atkins purchased the Bee and merged the two to form the Beeville Bee-Picayune, which has remained under the ownership of the Atkins and Latcham families. Over the years, the newspaper played an active role in the community in acquiring a naval base, college, and state prison, and it consistently won press association awards.