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The Lexington Progress Embarks on 133rd Year

Mr. W. T. “Jew” Franklin Jr. (and wife Kathleen) purchased The Lexington Progress seventy-one years ago, in May, 1946.

March 27th, 1884, William Valentine Barry moved from Decaturville to Lexington and began a six-page newspaper – The Lexington Progress.  He started assisting with his brother’s paper in 1881, gradually moving to editor.   Barry was born near Purdy, in McNairy County, in 1858, the horrors of war etching themselves into his young mind, but perhaps expanding his imagination and talents, enabling him in later years to turn news columns into art forms of prose.    The Lexington Progress was located on Main Street, where FirstBank is now located.  The end lot was an open lot for a carriage and supply business, and later The Lexington Republican occupied a building next door.    The Lexington Gazette had occupied the upper floor of the Stanford and Hatchett (Florence) building, much of its leaden typeset ruined during the fire set by Lt. Colonel Fielding Hurst of the 6th Tennessee Union Cavalry in 1864.     Much of the local news from the 1820’s through the 1870’s was covered by The West Tennessee Whig, and…

For the complete story, see the March 29th edition of The Lexington Progress.

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