Arkansas Gazette

The Arkansas Gazette was a newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, that was published from 1819 to 1991. It was known as the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi River. It was located from 1908 until its closing at the now historic Gazette Building. For many years it was the newspaper of record for Little Rock and the State of Arkansas. It was Arkansas' first newspaper. History The Arkansas Gazette began publication at Arkansas Post, the first capital of Arkansas Territory, on November 20, 1819. The Arkansas Gazette was established seventeen years before Arkansas became a state. When the capital was moved to Little Rock in 1821, publisher William E. Woodruff also relocated the Arkansas Gazette. The newspaper was the first to report Arkansas' statehood in 1836. Over the decades the paper was bought and sold many times. During the Civil War the paper was even shut down from September 1863 to May 1865. After the war the Gazette became the first newspaper to have telegraphic services from which they began to receive news from places like New Orleans, Louisiana, Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri. In 1908 the "Gazette" added colored comics. After the Elaine massacre of 1919, state officials concocted an elaborate cover-up, claiming that blacks were planning an insurrection. Newspapers, including the Arkansas Gazette, repeated the falsehood that blacks in Arkansas were staging an insurrection: the Gazette wrote that Elaine was "a zone of negro insurrection." Subsequent to this reporting, more than 100 African Americans were indicted, with 12 being sentenced to death by electrocution. After a years-long legal battle by the NAACP, the 12 men were acquitted.