In 1909, he organized local stockholders to form a company and bought the Lufkin Tribune, a weekly in operation since 1887.

McKelvey left the paper after a short time, with former Tribune chief George E. Watford returning to Lufkin in 1913 and buying the newspaper.

The new owners moved the newspaper from Cotton Square to new facilities on East Lufkin Avenue the next year.

Publisher W.R. "Beau" Beaumier took over the paper in 1943 after coming Lufkin two years earlier to head the local chamber of commerce.

The paper changed its name to The Lufkin News after moving to a "spacious, modernistic" complex at Ellis and Herndon streets in 1959.

Tom Meredith came from Waco to become publisher in 1965 after Beaumier's death, and Lufkin native Joe Murray was named editor in 1969, succeeding Bill Bogart.

[12] The newspaper was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1977 for Public Service for an obituary of a local man who died in Marine training camp, which grew into an investigation of that death and a fundamental reform in the recruiting and training practices of the United States Marine Corps.