As the Texas Digital Newspaper Program prepares to celebrate 2.5 million pages on November 6, 2014, we welcome multiple new grant awardees and newspaper titles!

• The Polk County Enterprise: The county seat, Livingston, Texas, has received a grant to digitize its newspaper, beginning in 1892 and moving up to 1965.  This span of years will represent such famous historic figures from Polk County, including former governor of Texas, William P. Hobby, after whom the Houston Hobby International Airport was named. 
• The Carl and Mary Welhausen Public Library has received a grant to digitize multiple newspaper titles representing Yoakum, Texas, and DeWitt and Lavaca Counties.  Yoakum is also known as the Leather Capital of Texas and the Hub City of South Texas!
• The Cleveland Journal & Illustrated Paper Boy emerge from Cleveland, Texas, and are being digitized by the Austin Memorial Library.  Cleveland’s first structure was a church built in 1854, around which later settlement began in the 1870s.  In addition, the Illustrated Paper Boy is one of the more unique titles we’ve run across in Texas newspapers.
• Refugio, Texas, is the home of the Dennis M. O’Connor Public Library, which has received a grant to digitize many of its county newspaper titles.  Refugio, Texas, is near the coast, and it is the birthplace of famed Texas Rangers pitcher, Nolan Ryan. 
• The Mercedes New Tribune and the Mercedes Enterprise will be digitized through a grant received by the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Library.  Located in the Rio Grande Valley, Mercedes is the home town of Tejano music singer Elida Reyna, whose family moved to the community when she was eight years old, and who won the Latin Grammy Award in 2010. 

We wish to thank all of the libraries who have contributed to historical preservation in Texas through their hard work in preserving and making these newspapers accessible to the public via the Texas Digital Newspaper Program.