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Texas Day by Day

July 15, 1865


German-language paper founded in San Antonio

On this day in 1865, August Siemering founded the German-language Freie Presse für Texas in San Antonio. Siemering, born in Germany in 1828, came to Texas in 1851 and later opened the first public school in Fredericksburg. He was an ardent Republican and abolitionist, though he had been impressed into the Confederate army in 1861, and the Freie Presse became known as one of the leading Republican newspapers in the South during Reconstruction. A few months after founding the paper, Siemering also founded the English-language San Antonio Express, in which the prominent Republican journalist James P. Newcomb bought an interest in 1867. Siemering sold the Express in 1877 and died six years later. The Freie Presse ceased publication in 1945.

Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
SIEMERING, AUGUST
SAN ANTONIO FREIE PRESSE FUR TEXAS
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
NEWCOMB, JAMES PEARSON
FREDERICKSBURG, TX
GERMAN ATTITUDE TOWARD THE CIVIL WAR
FORTY-EIGHTERS
ADELSVEREIN

Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
Unhappy colonists start "war" and evict Hedgcoxe (1852)
Texas Bar Association organized in Galveston (1882)
Texans rout Cherokees in battle of the Neches (1839)


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