The Sulphur Springs News-Telegram is the leading news source for Sulphur Springs and Hopkins County, Texas. The newspaper is owned by Hopkins County Publishing, LLC.
Deed records indicate that a newspaper was published in Hopkins County as early as 1854. It was known at the "Texas Star” and was located in Tarrant, which then served as the county seat. In 1855, the printing presses were purchased by William Wortham, who moved the equipment to Bright Star (later Sulphur Springs) and founded a paper he called the “Independent Frontier.” In 1864, Wortham renamed it the “Sulphur Springs Gazette” and retained ownership until 1898.
The “Echo” was founded by Ezra Tate in 1878 as a competitor to the Gazette. During it’s 39-year ownership by the Tate family, the Echo acquired two other local publications, the “Evening News” and the “Morning Telegram.” The Tate family merged these two newspapers as the “Daily News-Telegram” while maintaining the weekly Echo.
During 1917, the Bagwell Company gained ownership of Echo. The Daily News-Telegram, Daily Gazette and Weekly Gazette were later purchased and formed into one daily publication known as the Daily News-Telegram.
A central printing company, Echo Publishing Co., purchased the publications in 1951. Southern Newspapers purchased the News-Telegram from Echo Publishing in May 2017, and Hopkins County Publishing, LLC purchased the newspaper in May 2019.