Palo Pinto County, Texas, without a newspaper since early in the pandemic, now has one, from CherryRoad Media

Wikipedia maps, adapted

A Texas county of 29,000 people an hour west of Fort Worth had been without a local newspaper for more than two years until startup community-newspaper chain CherryRoad Media started publishing the Palo Pinto Press in Mineral Wells, pop. 15,000, on Aug. 26.

"Members of the community . . . reached out to CherryRoad this past spring to see if there was interest in opening a new operation," reports the Texas Press Messenger, the monthly newspaper of the Texas Press Association.

“What we saw there was a community that is actively working to grow, to build its future,” CherryRoad CEO Jeremy Gulban said in a news release. “We quickly realized this is a town, and a region, we want to be a part of. Opening a newspaper there was an easy decision.”

The nameplate features the historic Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells.

The Palo Pinto Press has a weekly print edition that is being mailed to more than 10,000 households in Mineral Wells for the first few weeks, and an electronic edition is going to thousands more households in Palo Pinto County. "A focused circulation push will lead to transition to a paid distribution model by later in the fall," the release says.

The release says CherryRoad believes the Press will be successful because it has "plenty of backing from local businesses . . . like Palo Pinto General Hospital." It adds that the company, started in 2020, plans to expand into at least six more states this fall. “This isn’t our first start-up, and we don’t intend it to be our last,” Gulban said.

After Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. merged the Mineral Wells Index into the Weatherford Democrat in adjoining Parker County (which has a small part of Mineral Wells' population) in May 2020, two online news outlets popped up: the Mineral Wells Area News and Goodday Mineral Wells. But the return of a printed newspaper was welcomed by Dr. Glenn Rogers, the state representative for the two counties. In his latest column, Rogers wrote:

"With the August inaugural edition of the Palo Pinto Press, all of the counties in Texas House District 60 are fortunately covered by at least one local print outlet. Each of these community newspapers have dedicated and talented staffers who work diligently to keep you informed and to keep me and my fellow elected officials accountable. These local news editors and writers are not outsiders, they are integral parts to the communities they cover. They do not write to appease the interests of billionaires or coastal elites; they write to serve you. So next time you see a local paper on the stand, pick up a copy. Even better, subscribe to your local newspaper or place an ad in the paper. Stay connected to your hometown, keep yourself informed on important issues and support local journalism."