Birmingham Sun
The Birmingham Sun was the first newspaper published in Birmingham. It was the successor to the Elyton Herald, which had been purchased by Robert Henley in 1869. He renamed it the Elyton Sun before moving its old Washington hand press and case of type to a corner of the Alabama & Chattanooga Railroad's office at Birmingham in 1871.
According to John Witherspoon Dubose, Henley edited the paper with "marked ability" for six months before he was appointed Mayor of Birmingham. Struggling to balance his duties as municipal executive with those of editor, and in failing health, Henley turned the operation over to Charles Cantley, who briefly experimented with publishing the paper daily. The Sun earned notoriety for publishing detailed reports of the city's 1873 cholera epidemic.
Henley himself died from tuberculosis in April 1873. His heirs sold the Sun to Thomas McLaughlin and James Matthews that year. They renamed it the Jefferson Independent.
References
- Dubose, John Witherspoon (1887) Jefferson County and Birmingham, Alabama: Historical and Biographical Birmingham: Teeple & Smith, Publishers; Caldwell Printing Works.
- Cruikshank, George H. (1920) History of Birmingham and Its Environs: A Narrative Account of Their Historical Progress, Their People, and Their Principal Interests 2 volumes. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing Company. - via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections
- Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce (1976) Century Plus: A Bicentennial Portrait of Birmingham, Alabama 1976 Birmingham: Oxmoor Press, p. 16.