The Brooksville Journal has been digitized!
Issues of the Brooksville Journal 1928-1959 were digitized during our Phase 6 cycle. Issues from 1928-1938 are available in Chronicling America at the time of this blog post. Issues from 1939-1959 will be added later this year.
Issues from related titles including the Brooksville Sun-Journal, and the Brooksville Sun will be digitized soon and added to Chronicling America and the Florida Digital Newspaper Library.
The Brooksville Journal was a weekly newspaper published in Brooksville, Florida from 1927 until 1959 by the Russell family through their business, the Russell Publishing Company. The Russell family was highly influential and the Journal both reflected and supported their power, influence, and longevity in Brooksville.
The Russell family was first established in Brooksville in 1882 by Absalom McKinney Curry Russell, son of Willis McKinney Russel, owner and editor of the Bainbridge argus [LCCN: sn85034393] in Bibb County, Georgia. In 1902 Absolom Russel founded the Southern Argus in Brooksville. Two of his brothers founded other newspapers in Florida, the Metropolis and the Palmetto News. Two more brothers worked as newspaper printers and Lino typists.
In Brooksville, Absolom’s son, Edwin R. Russell, took over the Southern argus upon his father’s death in 1912. When a fire destroyed the Argus’s publishing plant in 1922, Edwin R. Russell purchased the Brooksville Star and merged the papers under the title the Brooksville Argus. In 1927 Edwin R. Russell launched The Brooksville Journal and in 1930 purchased the Brooksville Herald from Poynter McEvoy. After this acquisition, Russell added a note to the first page specifying that the Brooksville Journal combined the Brooksville star, the Brooksville Argus, and the Brooksville Herald.
The newspaper business remained a family affair for the entire run of the Brooksville Journal. Edwin R. Russell edited the paper alone until 1934 when Taylor Dawson was briefly listed as associate editor. In 1941 Edwin R. Russel’s son, Edwin Wallace Russell, began contributing to the paper as editor. Edwin Sr. continued to manage the business. Gaye Dora Gray Russell, Edwin Sr.’s wife, served as society editor from 1933 through 1959.
In 1959 Almon Brooks Wilder and Eloise Wilder purchased both the Brooksville Journal and the Brooksville Sun and consolidated them into one newspaper, the Brooksville Sun-Journal. In 1961 the Wilders sold the newspaper to Phil and Mildred Bennet, a married couple, and Marjorie Hahn, with the Hahn-Bennets taking ownership in January 1962. Almon Wilder died unexpectedly before the handover and Eloise Wilder continued to run the paper by herself until January 1962. The Brooksville Sun-Journal continued publishing under the Sun-Journal (1963-1979), the Daily Sun-Journal (1979-1991), and the Sun-Journal (1991-1992) until 1992.
Regular issues of the Brooksville Journal ranged from four to sixteen pages and special editions could be over twenty pages. From 1929 until 1933 the newspaper included the Florida Farm and Grove Section, an eight- to ten-page section dedicated to agricultural news from around the state, including heavy coverage of the citrus and poultry industries which were vital to Hernando County’s economy. The Brooksville Journal also printed the Hilltop, the Hernando County Highschool newspaper on and off from 1930 onward.
The Brooksville Journal described itself as “purely Democratic in politics” and dedicated to the progress of Brooksville and Hernando County. The Russells were sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan, whose activity increased in Brooksville during the Civil Rights movement and the integration of Brooksville’s schools, which was not completed until 1969. The Journal’s editors were also supportive of Brooksville’s 1948 zoning laws, which effectively segregated the town in direct opposition to earlier US Supreme Court rulings against these types of laws.
The Brooksville Journal also covered surrounding communities in Hernando County, including Nobleton, Spring Lake, Istachatta, Masaryktown and Weeki Wachee. Named for the first president of Czechoslovakia, Masaryktown was founded in 1924 by Joseph Joscak, editor of the New Yorkský denník and a group of Slovakian immigrants who established citrus groves south of Brooksville. A series of frosts decimated the groves and disrupted the community as they pivoted to poultry. By the early 1950s the town had lost many members of the founding families and much of its Czechoslovakian identity.
The development of Weeki Wachee Springs, one of Florida’s most famous mid-century tourist attractions, was also well documented in the Brooksville Journal. In addition to updates on the park’s expansion and the growth of tourism in Hernando County, the Brooksville Journal often featured front-page photographs of the mermaids, young women performers who gracefully swam with tails in the spring’s underwater theater.
Bibliography
The Brooksville Herald (Brooksville, Fla.) https://newspapers.uflib.ufl.edu/AA00085614/
DEWITT, DAN. “JUSTICE FINALLY HAS ITS PLACE IN HISTORY.” Tampa Bay Times (FL), sec. HERNANDO TIMES, 6 Oct. 2013, p. 1. NewsBank: Access World News – Historical and Current, https://infoweb-newsbank-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb-newsbank-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net&svc_dat=WORLDNEWS&req_dat=12B2DC4F66794E0FB657EBF6B1851F20&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Anews/149570D8B3198B00 . Accessed 12 May 2025.
DeWITT, DAN. “RACISM’S REMNANT.” St. Petersburg Times, sec. HERNANDO TIMES, 22 Feb. 1998, p. 1. NewsBank: Access World News – Historical and Current, https://infoweb-newsbank-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb-newsbank-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net&svc_dat=WORLDNEWS&req_dat=12B2DC4F66794E0FB657EBF6B1851F20&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Anews/0EB52F2310063391 . Accessed 9 May 2025.
The Metropolis (Jacksonville, Fla.) https://newspapers.uflib.ufl.edu/UF00048819/00001
The Southern Argus (Brooksville, Fla.) https://www.newspapers.uflib.ufl.edu/AA00081507/00001
Stanaback, Richard J. A History of Hernando County 1840-1976. Brooksville, Fla, Action ’76 Steering Committee, 1976.
Excerpts available through the West Pasco Historical Society Rao Musunuru, M.D. Museum & Library. https://westpascomuseum.org/pascohistory/historicalinformation/communities/masaryktown/ and Jeff Miller. https://www.fivay.org/hernando6s.html
Full-text available the Internet Archive with loan: https://archive.org/details/historyofhernand0000rich_q5s9/mode/2up
Warnock, Judy. “The Russell Family Legacy: Absalom Russel and the Southern Argus.” The Hernando Sun. March 25, 2025. https://www.hernandosun.com/2025/03/25/the-russell-family-legacy-absalom-russell-and-the-southern-argus/
