GAINESVILLE DAILY REGISTER CELEBRATING 135 YEARS
By Sarah Simmons & Sally Sexton
The Gainesville Daily Register is a local newspaper based in Gainesville, Texas, published in print on Tuesdays and Saturdays, with daily updates online. It was founded in 1890 by the Leonard family under the name Gainesville Daily Register and Messenger and has been in continuous publication and maintained an unbroken publication record for 130 years. John T. Leonard was the original publisher of the Register, which was published each afternoon except on Sundays. His son, Joe M. Leonard Sr., was born in the upstairs of the Register and he, too, devoted his life to the newspaper, working in the office from the time he was 7 to when he began to set hot type for the linotype machines, according to newspaper archives.
Joe M. Sr. inherited the position of editor of The Gainesville Daily Register from his father John T. Leonard. He guided the Register’ s content and production to numerous awards in the newspaper industry, just like his father before him. All of John T. Leonard’ s children and grandchildren were taught at an early age the various processes of newspaper production and business. An early job during for the children would be selling newspapers. According to Joe M. Jr., the skills required were a strong and loud voice that could be yelled from street corners,“ Read all about it in today’ s Register!” Thick leather shoes and persistence were other attributes helpful for the job.“ If you didn’ t make a few pennies with the daily, you had a chance of making something of a windfall with an Extra,” he said. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Extra editions were fairly common. Prior to the advent of the electronic media, newspapers capitalized on big, late breaking news stories with the special editions. Subscribers could pay 50 cents in advance for one month, or $ 5 a year, if they lived in the counties of Cooke, Grayson, Denton, Montague and Wise, as well as Love Country Oklahoma, according to a Jan. 1, 1940 edition of the Register.
Those outside the area could be expected to pay 70 cents per month in
16 GAINESVILLE LIVING