Walker County Messenger

First published on July 27, 1877, the Walker County Messenger was the first newspaper to be established in LaFayette, Walker County, Georgia. Captain Augustus McHan and son E.A. McHan served as the primary editors of the original newspaper, making E.A. McHan, aged 16, the youngest southern editor at the time.[1] Yearly subscriptions to the Messenger, six-columns and four-pages at the time, began at one dollar. The paper also served the Chattooga, Catoosa, and Dade counties until newspapers were created within the counties.[2]

The McHans sold the paper to Nathan Campbell Napier in 1880, but E.A. McHan continued to work as the editor-in-chief, before eventually retiring. Napier continued to run the newspaper for 21 years before relinquishing ownership to his son in 1902. E.P. Hall Junior bought the newspaper in 1915, retaining ownership until 1973 when it was bought by Boone Publishing Co. On September 22, 1988, the paper was bought by News Publishing Co., before eventually being bought by the present owner, Times-Journal Inc.[3]

In December 2017, over 16,000 pages of the Walker County Messenger were added to the Georgia Historic Newspapers (GHN) website. The funding for the digitization was provided by Georgia HomePLACE, a project of the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) dedicated to encouraging public library participation in other DLG programs. [2]