Gatesville Messenger seeks help rebuilding historic Coryell County archive

A March fire wiped out much of the Gatesville Messenger’s historic archive, and the paper is now asking Coryell County residents to help rebuild the record of births, obituaries, marriages, legal notices and daily community life that sat in its files for decades.

The fire began about 6:50 p.m. on Monday, March 16, in the 100 block of South Sixth Street near the Coryell County Sheriff’s Office and spread through several historic downtown buildings, including Leaird’s Furniture. It started in the Gatesville Messenger building, and the Texas Department of Insurance State Fire Marshal’s Office ruled out arson. Three firefighters suffered minor smoke-inhalation injuries, and Coryell County Judge Roger A. Miller signed an emergency disaster declaration as the blaze tore through a block that had been added to the National Register of Historic Places in February.

The archives were consolidated into specially built cabinets around 1996, when Marshall Day became publisher, and those cabinets held bound volumes dating to 1936, or about 89 years of Gatesville and Coryell County history. Janice Velasquez confirmed that the fire burned decades of records, including books documenting every newspaper the Messenger had published since 1936.

People routinely used them to track birth notices, obituaries, marriage notices, legal notices and community news, the kinds of records that help families sort out lineage, property histories, school events and the life of Main Street businesses. Editions published after 1955 are largely available online, but the earlier material was mainly available only in physical form, which means the community’s oldest record now depends on whatever copies survived in drawers, attics and file boxes around town.

The Messenger has served Gatesville since 1887, and Library of Congress records include a Gatesville Messenger title from 1892 to 1907 and a Gatesville Messenger and Star-Forum title beginning in 1907. The 1894 feud between W.W. Penn and Pat Robertson is part of that history. After the fire, the staff kept publishing from a temporary office at Gatesville Primary School, with operations also running through the Gatesville Public Library during the transition, and held a re-grand opening on June 20. The newspaper is now asking residents to bring in old copies, photographs, clippings and documents that can help restore the archive.