Community Newspaper - owned by Bardwellink, LLC/Jim and Suzanne Bardwell. Newspaper is the oldest continuous business in Gladewater, founded in 1904.
According to Texas Hostorical Commission records, the Gladewater Mirror Newspaper has been in existence since 1849 – under one name or another. The local newspaper has provided the people of Gladewater and East Texas with news under many banners: The Gladewater Journal, The Gladewater Gazette, The Gladewater Weekly News, The Gladewater Daily Mirror, The Gladewater Daily Times-Tribune and The Gladewater Mirror.
And while the name may have changed over the past 166 years, the message has been the same – to inform and educate its readers and to hold government accountable to the taxpayers and voters.
According to the Texas State Historical Association, The Gladewater Mirror was started prior to the Civil War. The TSHA website states: “functioning newspapers that were founded before the end of the Civil War were the Galveston News (founded in 1842), the Bay City Daily-Tribune (originally Bay City Tribune, 1848), the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise (originally the SeguinGazette, 1846), the Victoria Advocate (1846), the Rusk Cherokeean-Herald (originally the Rusk Cherokeean, 1847), the Gladewater Mirror (1849), the Huntsville Item (1850), the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung (originally the Neu Braunfelser Zeitung, 1852), the Bastrop Advertiser (1853), the Gonzales Inquirer (1853), the Colorado County Citizen (1857), the Cameron Herald(1860), the Jasper News-Boy (1865), the Jefferson Jimplecute (1865), and the San Antonio Express-News (originally the San Antonio Express, 1865).”