Stop the Presses: The Dallas Times Herald is Finally Online!

by Paula Bosse

by Paula Bosse

I was beginning to think we would never see the digitized, searchable archives of The Dallas Times Herald show up online. I have personally been told on two separate occasions — the first time was in 2018 — by representatives of the powers-that-be whom have long held this treasure trove clasped tightly to their bosom (I’m looking at you, DMN…) that the online emergence of this archive was IMMINENT. …It wasn’t, and I’ve been slowly losing hope that they would ever be made available to the public. But, pigs can fly: the DTH has come back to us, 35 years after its sad demise (I’m looking at you, DMN…).

It is now resting in the warm embrace of GenealogyBank.com, a genealogy site that has loads of newspapers. It seems an unusual destination for what I consider an unbelievably exciting newspaper archive, until you realize that Genealogy Bank is owned by NewsBank, home to the online archives of The Dallas Morning News (accessible for free through the Dallas Public Library website). I called and talked to a very nice Genealogy Bank rep on Monday, and she’s probably going to be talking about our phone call for quite some time. …I was pretty giddy. (But this is a such big deal!)

This post is in no way a paid sponsorship (I wish it were!), but if you are interested in checking this out, head to GenealogyBank.com and sign up for a free 7-day trial. You have to register with a credit card, but if you cancel the trial before the 7 days, you pay nothing. If you want to sign up for a year’s subscription, it’s $79.

Let me add here, that if you have fumed angrily for years that you cannot access the ESSENTIAL Dallas Morning News archives because you do not live in the city of Dallas (the requirement for obtaining a DPL library card), your prayers have been answered (…for $79 plus, I assume, tax). I haven’t had a lot of time to explore the site, but it appears that GB has DMN issues from 1885 to at least 2016 (this is more than the library offers) — I’ve even seen color photos in those later issues. So, 79 buck for the Morning News AND the Times Herald — a worth-every-penny two-fer!

The Times Herald has a confusing “origin story,” but let’s just say that archives for Dallas papers containing the word “Herald” are on GB from the 1880s to at least 1981. It’s likely that the last 10 years of the Herald will show up somewhere soon — possibly NewsBank — but as of today, I didn’t see anything on Genealogy Bank past 1981. But that’s 100 years of something that has NEVER been available before — released into the wild all at one time!

The search interface is a little weird, but if you close your eyes and squint, it’s basically the same as the NewsBank search. Sort of. But it’s going to take some time to get used to.

Here are the other Dallas newspapers Genealogy Bank offers (don’t get too excited, because other than the DTH and DMN, most of the papers listed below are from limited time spans — some are only a single issue (a lot are single issues from 1876, for some reason)):

Al Dia
Brotherhood Eyes (only one issue but super cool! — DPL has more)
Daily Intelligencer
Dallas Daily Commercial
Dallas Daily Herald
Dallas Express
Dallas Morning News
Dallas Sunday Dispatch
Dallas Times Herald
Dallas Weekly Herald
The Item
Norton’s Union Intelligencer
Weekly Times Herald

I am completely serious when I say this is one of the most exciting things to happen in the Dallas-history community for quite some time! I will be browsing through these issues whenever I have a spare minute.

Biggest disappointment: The Dallas Times Herald scans are not the greatest — the photos are not the quality I’ve come to expect from the (mostly) very nice Dallas Morning News scans. But I’m not going to complain.

A full screen looks like this:

Below, what a full page looks like (the actual online document is legible — the image below is a low-resolution screenshot). You can zoom way in, download, clip, print, save, and share.

Nov. 23, 1963

Thank you, Genealogy Bank!

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Sources & Notes

All images are screenshots from the GenealogyBank.com website.

I have to thank Steve R. for messaging me Monday about this momentous occurrence. Otherwise, I’d never have known. I was in a doctor’s waiting room and considered leaving right then to rush home to see if this Charlie Brown football we’ve been promised for so long was really there. And it was! Thanks, Steve!

Flashback : Dallas