"The Rest of the Story" - Events Subsequent to the 1929 Article in the Arlington Journal (The Arlington Journal, The Citizen, The Citizen-Journal, and Beyond)
O. K. Carter joined the Arlington Citizen-Journal in 1972. He was editor and publisher of the Citizen-Journal, as well as publisher for the Arlington Star-Telegram. He retired in 2008 after nearly 40 years in the newspaper business. He received close to 100 journalism awards during his career, and he continues in Arlington's media scene in retirement.
F.L. “Luther” Perry's involvement with the Journal was a relatively long one, from 1925 to 1947, when he leased the paper to his sons-in-laws, Bennie Young and Charlie Gregory. Perry proclaimed himself exhausted after being a virtual one-man newspaper during World War II – skilled printers, ad salesmen and reporters simply weren’t available. Perry briefly resumed control of the paper in 1949, selling it the following year to a pair of Illinois journalists, Albert Altwegg Jr. and R.M. Weicker. Though the population of Arlington was modest, about 7,800, the two men thought that Arlington’s location midway between Dallas and Fort Worth promised great future potential.
Perry had reported on the rise and fall of horse racing in Arlington and he wrote many articles about the bootlegging industry – Arlington once had numerous stills – along with articles about war shortages and hints about pending future growth.
Not that Perry, or the Altwegg-Weicker team, were to have Arlington to themselves. In October 1934 competition arrived via the colorful A.H. Wheeler – a self-proclaimed “country editor.” His Arlington Citizen was a traditional rural newspaper, but Wheeler personally was anything else but a staid man. He was an organizer for the controversial Famer’s Educational and Cooperative Union, and he also believed in radio, broadcasting “The Country Editor” initially over KTAK radio. His most familiar theme was that of advocating “the little man” as a foe of big business. The show proved popular and increased first from one show a week to two and then six days a week on the more popular and powerful KFJZ radio. Saturday afternoons the show was broadcast live from the Aggie Theater in downtown Arlington and included a popular children’s amateur talent component. Along the way Wheeler also ran for congress, unsuccessfully.
Indeed, Wheeler had so many irons in the fire – including ownership of several other area newspapers – that in 1940 he turned over control of the Arlington paper to his son, Lowell Wheeler. In 1946 the Arlington Citizen was sold to a man who was to become a legendary local newsman and pundit – George Hawkes.
George Hawkes and his brother, Charles, ran the Arlington Citizen for a decade until 1957. With owners of both the Citizen and Journal weary of fighting each other for readers and advertisers, the two papers merged with George Hawkes as publisher, Charles Hawkes as editor and Weicker as business manager. They also recognized that yet another rival had arrived, Stanley McBrayer’s Arlington Daily News Texan, eventually shortening its name to Arlington Daily News.
Stories in the Arlington Citizen-Journal included creation of the Great Southwest Industrial District and Six Flags Amusement Park, the building of Lake Arlington and Arlington State College winning the Junior Rose Bowl.
In 1964, Carter Publications (the Star-Telegram) purchased a major block of Citizen-Journal stock, though the Hawkes and Weicker remained in place as managers until Capital Cities purchased the Star-Telegram in 1972. The “C-J” dominated both the Texas Press Association and North and Texas Press Association, its staff winning sweepstakes award after award, clearly establishing a place as the best non-daily newspaper in Texas.
As Arlington grew, the Star-Telegram sharpened its focus on Arlington, eventually winning a newspaper war with the Dallas Morning News to become the dominant newspaper in the city. The Citizen-Journal was first folded into the Star-Telegram, then eliminated in favor of the Arlington-Star Telegram. The Citizen-Journal was eventually rediscovered by the S-T and now appears as a paper with zoned advertising, and as a S-T insert featuring mostly local news.
The Citizen Journal (and its predecessors the Journal and the Citizen), were the dominant newspaper voices in Arlington for almost a Citizen-Journal is still with us, delivered to some 90,000 households in Arlington as a part of the Star-Telegram.
