The Richmond Register

The Richmond Registers history goes back more than 200 years to when Richmond was incorporated as a city. Richmonds earliest newspaper was The Globe Register, first published Nov. 2, 1809, by Dr. Thomas White Ruble, a Virginian who came to Richmond in 1805. Ruble owned the paper for a year before selling to John A. Grimes, who changed its name to T... he Luminary. The paper was sold to Joe Turner in 1816, who in 1822 changed the name to The Farmers Chronicle. Competition came in 1822 when The Richmond Republican began publication. Third newspaper, The People's Press, started in 1827. The Chronicle was sold again in 1829. Col. William Neale bought it from Turner for $1,000. In 1845, editor Thomas I. Goddin changed the name from The Farmers Chronicle to The Whig Chronicle, which found competition from 1847 to 1859 from The Kentucky Plowboy. J.M. Shackleford and S.V. Rowland were proprietors in 1852 and again the papers name was changed, this time to The Weekly Messenger. In 1851, Col. R.H. Johnson, who had successfully published The Western Whig in central Illinois, came to Richmond and bought Rowlands interest in The Messenger. He later bought Shacklefords interest and made The Messenger the largest circulated paper in Kentucky outside Louisville. The paper was sold again in 1858 to a joint stock company but ceased to be published in 1862, apparently on account of the Civil War. In September of 1862, another paper, The Kentucky Rebel, was published in Richmond, but only one issue was published during the Confederate occupation of Richmond. Other papers that appeared in Richmond during the war years included The Mountain Boomer by Barney Young and The Mountain Democrat. The year 1866 saw The Kentucky Register appear in Richmond. It was followed by The Herald in 1879, which was replaced by The Climax. The 1890s saw three papers being printed in Richmond: The Kentucky Register, The Climax and The Semiweekly Pantograph. Other papers started in Richmond in the early 1900s include The Madisonian published by Judge Grant ...Read More