Anderson Independent-Mail
The newspaper became the first in the state to publish daily on the Internet in 1995.
(2003 circulation: 38,223 daily and 43,654 Sunday). The Anderson Independent Mail, serving numerous counties in northeastern Georgia and northwestern South Carolina, draws its history from several publications. The first was founded in 1899 as the Anderson Daily Mail. The editor and publisher, G. Pierce Browne, also published the People’s Advocate beginning in 1890. The Daily Mail published continuously until merging with the Anderson Independent in 1981.
The Anderson Independent also figures in the Independent-Mail’ s history. The newspaper was first published in 1924 with Wilton E. Hall serving as editor and publisher. This paper was merged with the Anderson Daily Tribune in 1925 to create the Anderson Independent-Tribune. Hall purchased the Daily Mail in 1930 but continued to publish the two newspapers separately, the Daily Mail as an afternoon paper and the Independent-Tribune as a morning newspaper. In 1950 the Independent-Tribune reverted to the name of Independent.
Hall sold these newspapers to Harte-Hanks, Inc., of San Antonio in 1972. In 1981 the two newspapers were formally merged as the Anderson Independent-Mail. The newspaper stopped publishing an afternoon edition two years later but continues to publish multiple editions for readers in Georgia and South Carolina. The newspaper became the first in the state to publish daily on the Internet in 1995.
Ownership changed hands again when the F. W. Scripps Company, based in Cincinnati, purchased the newspaper from Harte-Hanks in October 1997.
McNeely, Patricia G. The Palmetto Press: The History of South Carolina’s Newspapers and the Press Association. Columbia: South Carolina Press Association, 1998.
