Springdale News

John Pleasant Stafford worked as an apprentice at the first newspaper in Springdale (Washington and Benton counties), the Springdale Enterprise, in the early 1880s (1881–1883). In 1887, he purchased the Arkansas Locomotive (1886–1887) in Springdale. Later that year, he started his own paper, the Springdale News.

Stafford was only eighteen when he established the News and was said to be the youngest newspaper publisher in Arkansas. Stafford’s first office for the News had only a few fonts, a cheap job press, and an “army” press in a fourteen-foot square room in a frame building downtown. In 1890, he added a typewriter. Stafford found it difficult to collect money from his advertisers and subscribers. To remedy this, he accepted goods like loads of wood to heat his office in exchange for newspapers.

In addition to running the paper, Stafford was a tireless promoter of Springdale, serving on boards of local organizations and performing in the city band. He also worked in state government and served two terms in the Arkansas General Assembly. In 1929, he was elected president of the Arkansas Press Association. Stafford had seven children, all of whom worked at the paper over the years. Stafford died in 1933, and his son Edward “Marty” Stafford took over as editor of the News.

The Springdale News was originally a four-page weekly paper. The paper published a daily edition for a short run, but it quickly returned to the once-a-week publication schedule. The News again temporarily published daily editions in 1898 to report telegraphed news from the Spanish-American War. In 1904 and 1909, Stafford attempted publishing the News twice a week, but not until 1928 did the News consistently appear twice a week every week. The most popular section of the paper was the information from correspondents around Arkansas who reported news from their cities, including Johnson (Washington County), Spring Valley (Washington County), Tontitown (Washington County), and Elm Springs (Washington and Benton Counties).

In 1948, the newspaper expanded to a thrice-weekly publishing schedule, then beginning a daily edition the next year. The paper continued under Edward Stafford’s direction until his death in 1957, when his wife Glaphyra took the helm at the paper. She retired the next year, selling the paper to brothers Bob and T. C. Sanders. In 1963, Bob retired, leaving the paper to T. C., who formed the Springdale Publishing Co., Inc., with brother Charles acting as editor and T. C.’s wife, Maudine Farish Sanders, serving as associate editor.

In 1960, Jim Morriss became the executive editor for the paper. He had been working at the paper since 1950, beginning at the age of thirteen. In 1964, Charles Bickford joined as staff photographer. Through his storied career at the Springdale News, Bickford photographed several notable events that occurred in the region, including the “Big Shootout” rivalry football game in 1969 between the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) and the University of Texas. Morriss later said of Bickford that he was “Mr. Photography for Northwest Arkansas.”

The paper published a daily edition Monday through Friday, and in 1972, it expanded its coverage to include a Sunday morning edition. By this point, the paper had reached a circulation of more than 8,000 readers.

The Sanders brothers, set to retire, sold the paper to the Donrey Media Group in 1973. In 1990, the Springdale News became the Morning News (1990–1994). In 1994, the paper merged with the Northwest Arkansas Morning News (1978–1994) to form the Morning News of Northwest Arkansas (1994–), which is still in publication.

Beginning in 2017, the Arkansas Digital Newspaper Project (ADNP) team at the Arkansas State Archives partnered with the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), to digitize historic Arkansas newspapers, including the Springdale News.

For additional information:
Allsopp, Frederick W. History of the Arkansas Press for a Hundred Years and More. Little Rock: Parke-Harper Publishing Co., 1922.

“Bickford Retires after 38 Years at News.” Talk Business & Politics, June 24, 2002 (accessed March 18, 2025).

Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwestern Arkansas. Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1890.

Meriweather, Robert W. A Chronicle of Arkansas Newspapers Published since 1922 and of the Arkansas Press Association. Little Rock: Arkansas Press Association, 1974.

“The Springdale News.” Chronicling America, Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83007654/ (accessed March 19, 2025).

Staff of the Arkansas Digital Newspaper Project
Arkansas State Archives

A version of this entry was initially published on both the website of the Arkansas State Archives and the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America project and is used here with permission.