The Mineola Monitor, the Crosbyton Review, and the Sweetwater Reporter are now available on The Portal to Texas History. These newspapers serve as archival records of their respective towns’ existence, providing not only valuable information to the genealogy researcher, but also documenting historic local events.

For example, the Wood County, Texas, newspaper industry boomed during the late 19th-century because railroads were literally racing each other to get to Mineola. The Texas and Pacific Railroad and the International Great-Northern Railroad competed to complete tracks to Mineola in 1873. The International Great-Northern won by reaching the town fifteen minutes before its competitor. The history of Mineola continued to be tied to the railroads, and its timber industry and later oil industry greatly profited from it.

All newspapers available on The Portal to Texas History are fully text-searchable and contain issue-level metadata description. This facilitates primary source research. Genealogists often comment on how helpful it is to type in a last name and immediately find information about where their ancestors had traveled, about how they passed away, and about what they wore in their weddings. These new additions to the Portal and to the Texas Digital Newspaper Program serve as primary source evidence for researchers, and it is through the generous support of the Tocker Foundation that these three titles are now available to the world.

–submitted by Ana Krahmer, Supervisor, Digital Newspaper Unit