Top of page

Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities
BETA

Newspaper Hot Springs Echo (Hot Springs, Ark.) 1???-19??

View All Front Pages

About Hot Springs Echo (Hot Springs, Ark.) 1???-19??

Hot Springs is the Garland County seat on the western edge of central Arkansas. It is uniquely positioned on the Ouachita River within the Ouachita Mountains, an area known for its natural hot springs. In the early 1800s, tourism to the hot springs took off, bringing people from across the state and country to the area. In 1832, Congress set aside the land that became Hot Springs National Park, marking the springs as federal land and preventing private ownership. Hot Springs city was incorporated in 1851, by which time there were rows of hotels and bath houses, along with other businesses set up to support the health tourism industry. Many came to the hot springs because of advertising that the waters had health benefits. Hot Springs briefly served as the state capital during the Civil War, though it did not see much of the fighting. After the war, the city offered employment for Black Arkansans and segregated bathhouses for their health. The city saw a rise in illegal gambling during this period. Beginning in the 1920s, the city was a hub for gangsters and mafia activity.

In 1898, 19-year-old Edward Swinburne Lockhart, Sr. founded the Hot Springs Echo in Hot Springs National Park. The masthead described it as the “leading secular race journal in Arkansas.” The Echo was a four-page, Republican paper published every Saturday to serve the Black community. The Echo was printed using a second-hand press and a few cases of type by a man who had no prior experience in running a business or printing press. By 1900, the paper had a circulation of under 1,000.

In 1910, Lockhart started the Arkansas Review Publishing Company as a general publishing and bookbinding business. Into the 1920s, the Echo was variously listed as the Arkansas Review in newspaper and city directories; however, the newspaper masthead remained the same and continued to be published as the Hot Springs Echo.

In 1913, Lockhart lost the newspaper plant and all his worldly possessions in the great Hot Springs fire on September 5. The fire was one of the worst in Arkansas history, destroying twenty acres and leaving many homeless. But Lockhart “kept hustling” and was able to rebuild and continue publishing the Echo, the “only live Negro paper in the section.”

The Echo focused on local news and social issues relevant to the Black community. The paper covered discrimination and racial violence, such as lynchings and race riots in Arkansas. It reported the Elaine Massacre in Phillips County in 1919, the deadliest race riot in Arkansas and possibly the entire US. On October 19, 1919, Lockhart wrote about how easy it was for gossip to inflame a community, as “whites whose minds are already impregnated with the seeds of prejudice begin to murmur.” He counseled that mob violence should be stopped and the justice system left to take care of criminal matters.

Lockhart repeatedly used the Echo to advocate for change and equality. He wrote articles about how the Black community wanted fair and equal rights and opportunities, like employment that paid enough to support themselves, owning property, having good schools, and justice in the law “instead of by lynchers.” The paper looked for support from white Arkansans, writing on September 20, 1919, “that the fair-minded element of white people are willing that the Negro should have these things and that with the friendly cooperation of the responsible classes within both races in seeking to bring about such conditions … there would be no need for the Negro to seek better conditions elsewhere and that the Southern Negro and the Southern white man would be able to dwell together in peace and in the spirit of mutual helpfulness.”

Lockhart was a pioneer for Black journalism in the southwestern US at a time when there were few other Black newspapers in the South. He started the Echo with no money and little encouragement, and he cultivated it into an influential paper for the Black community in Arkansas and surrounding states. Lockhart ran the Echo until his death in 1941, at which time the paper also ceased.

As of this writing, there are only a few surviving issues of the Echo. This is the case for many Black newspapers, as past archival organizations were often neglectful of preserving the Black community’s written heritage, and the newspapers did not survive. When newspapers disappear, Black voices are forever lost, leaving a large gap in the understanding of our history.

Provided By: Arkansas State Archives

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Hot Springs Echo (Hot Springs, Ark.) 1???-19??

Dates of Publication

  • 1???-19??

Created / Published

  • Hot Springs, Ark. : Echo Pub. Co.

Headings

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  "Leading secular race journal in Arkansas."
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 18, no. ? (Apr. 20, 1918).

Medium

  • v.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn89051273

OCLC Number

  • 19988117

ISSN Number

  • 2997-5360

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, see https://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Hot Springs Echo Hot Springs, Ark. 1???-19??. (Hot Springs, AR), 1???. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn89051273/.

APA citation style:

(1???) Hot Springs Echo Hot Springs, Ark. 1???-19??. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn89051273/.

MLA citation style:

Hot Springs Echo Hot Springs, Ark. 1???-19??. (Hot Springs, AR) 1???. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn89051273/.