The Newnan Times-Herald GA

Two Newnan attorneys, J.S. Bigby and J.C. Wootten, decided to start a newspaper as a sideline to their practices, and the first issue of The Newnan Herald came off the presses on Sept. 9, 1865 — exactly five months after the Civil War ended.

The four-page weekly — the first paper started in Georgia after the Civil War — cost $3 per year in advance and was published on Saturday.

Soon after the first Herald hit the streets, Bigby — who became active in local politics — sold his interest in the paper to James A. Welch. Following the deaths of Welch and Wootten, the Herald was edited by A.B. Cates, a native of Tennessee and a Confederate veteran.

Cates ran the Herald until late 1886 or early 1887, when the Herald consolidated with the Coweta Advertiser, published by the Rev. W.W. Wadsworth.

After the merger of the Herald and Wadsworth’s journal, the newspaper became known as the Herald and Advertiser. James E. Brown, who later became known as Judge Brown after his appointment as a U.S. Commissioner, became editor. He served for four decades and was known for his insightful editorials.

Brown was born in Marion County in 1854. Before coming to Newnan, he founded the Henry County Weekly in 1877. The “Coweta County Chronicles” history reported that Brown served as editor there until 1886 when he came to Newnan as editor of the Advertiser, then to the Herald and Advertiser after the merger.

Brown married a Newnan woman, Kate Milner, in 1883.

In 1912, Brown sold the Herald and Advertiser to Rhodes McPhail “after having guided its fortunes for nearly 25 years,” according to the “Chronicles.” The sale did not last, however. “The Herald people wanted James E. Brown, and James E. Brown wanted to return to his accustomed place — which he did with Ellis M. Carpenter as an assistant,” the county history reported.

In 1915, the Herald and Advertiser absorbed another rival, the Newnan News, and the paper again became known as the Newnan Herald. The “Chronicles” reported, “The owners of the News are part owners of the Herald, and the owners of the Herald are happy to have devoured a troublesome rival.”

Among those serving as business managers during Brown’s tenure were Edgar T. Whatley, Thomas S. Parrott and Oren William Passavant. Passavant also served as editor in 1911 and 1912 in Brown’s absence.

Passavant purchased the paper on Brown’s retirement in 1928, serving as editor until 1936. In 1933 the paper was cited for honorable mention in the editorial competition.[d]

Passavant, born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1882, came to Newnan in 1906. The news staff in the early 1930s consisted of Passavant and a young woman named Roberta Lyndon, later Mrs. Roberta Mayes of Atlanta. “I worked from 1934 until 1936 — when I came to Atlanta,” Mayes recalled in a 1988 interview.