The newspaper was established in 1884 by J. G. Murphy, the city's second mayor. Mr. Murphy sold the paper in the 1920s to Houston H. Harte. In 1924 it became one of the two original flagships of the Harte-Hanks newspaper chain.

Scripps began operating the newspaper in 1997 after purchasing it from Harte-Hanks, and as of 2015 Scripps operates this newspaper through its subsidiary Journal Media Group. The newspaper and its reporters have won various journalism awards, including awards from the Associated Press of Texas, presented in 2015.