Dateline: April 17, 2003

Newspaper founder enters Hall of Fame

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

The Panhandle Press Association inducted former local publisher Lewis Henry Carhart into the PPA Hall of Fame during the association’s 93rd annual convention in Amarillo last Friday.

Carhart was recognized for his role as being the first editor in the Texas Panhandle and for establishing the territory’s first newspaper, which today is known as The Clarendon Enterprise.

Born in New York in 1833, Carhart was a Northern Methodist Episcopal minister in Sherman, Texas, when he became interested in developing land in West Texas in 1877. In the spring of 1878, he led a group of Christian colonists to a site at the juncture of Carroll Creek and the Salt Fork of the Red River where he established Clarendon and named it in honor of his wife Clara. At the time, only Mobeetie and Tascosa existed as towns in the Panhandle, and neither one had a newspaper.

Carhart became the first editor in the Panhandle when he established, The Clarendon News, on June 1, 1878.  Dedicating its purpose to the “promotion and upbuilding of Northwestern Texas,” Carhart established the News as a six-column, four-page newspaper. Carhart served the paper as its editor and business manager and was assisted by James H. Parks, who served as the local editor while Carhart continued to travel to gather supplies and settlers for the colony.

With very few businesses in the new colony, early advertisers were mostly from Wisconsin and Ohio, and most of the early “news” articles were designed to promote the ideal location of the colony and to encourage even more settlement of the area. News items were gathered in Clarendon, Carhart contributed articles and sermons, and the content was then shipped to Carhart’s cousin, Dr. John Wesley Carhart in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for printing. The issues were then shipped back to Sherman, Texas, and freighted from there to Clarendon.

In 1880, Carhart assisted his cousin’s son, Ed Carhart, in setting up the area’s first printing press in Clarendon and worked with him for some time before turning the entire business over to him.

In February 1888, L.H. Carhart helped organize the territory’s first regional press association. The Panhandle Editorial Association made Carhart an honorary member for his role as the “first editor of the Panhandle region.” He addressed the opening of the first convention in Canadian and was named to serve on the Permanent Organization committee. By the close of the convention, Carhart was appointed to the Executive committee to represent Donley County.

Carhart later moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and eventually migrated to California where he died in a Union soldiers’ home in 1922. 

Despite going through many changes of ownership as well as name changes, Carhart’s creation has endured and has been published continuously since 1878.

Carhart joins former local publishers J.C. Estlack and G.W. Estlack in the PPA’s Hall of Fame. Other area newspapermen inducted this year were Garet von Netzer of the Amarillo Globe-News, David Rasco of the Amarillo Globe-News, and Danny Andrews of the Plainview Daily Herald.