[2] Under the leadership of founding editor Paul C. Edwards (1911–16), Marcellus E. Foster, known as "Mefo" (1927–37), and George Carmack (1946–64), the newspaper developed a reputation for flashy stories about violence and sex and for exposés of political malfeasance.
[3] The Houston Press was first issued September 25, 1911, from a plant at 709 Louisiana Street, for 1 cent a copy.
Notable former staff members included Walter Cronkite,[4] who later became the CBS news anchor; Thomas Thompson, author of Hearts and Blood and Money; Donald Forst, later editor of Newsday and The Village Voice; Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and biographer Vance Trimble; columnists Sig Byrd ("The Stroller") and Carl Victor Little (1894–1959) ("By The Way");[5] gossip columnist Maxine Mesinger; and television crusader Marvin Zindler, who once worked there as a photographer covering crime stories.
[6] In 1963, the year before it closed, the Press had an average daily circulation (Monday–Saturday) of 90,400, and employed 320 people.
Houston, before the closing of the Press, had been the only city west of the Mississippi River with more than two daily newspapers.