The Burleson Linotype

Hazel Deering reads the final edition of The Burleson Dispatcher
seated at her Model 14 Linotype on September 25, 1985

Photo Courtesy Alicia DuVall

What is the Burleson Linotype? Put simply, it is the last surviving piece of equipment from The Burleson Dispatcher, a newspaper which served the town of Burleson, Texas from roughly 1900 to September 25, 1985. The Linotype sat undisturbed in the Dispatcher Building from the newspaper’s close until 1999, when the City of Burleson restored the structure and turned it into the Burleson Heritage Visitors Center.

So, you might be wondering, what is a Linotype?

The Linotype revolutionized the world of print communication in 1886 when Ottmar Mergenthaler’s aptly named contraption (Line-o-Type) made its debut in the composing room of the New York Tribune. For centuries, “printer’s devils” had hand-set print jobs by plucking individual letters, numbers, and characters from type cabinets. The Linotype allowed a single operator to set and cast type with relative ease.

Small molds, called matrices, were released with the press of a key. Assembled, the matrices were moved across the machine to a pot, where hot metal was squirted across them to form a solid, legible line of type (hence the name Linotype). Once the line had been cast, it was moved further up the machine to a distributor which reinserted the matrices into a specific slot in a magazine, ready for reuse.

The Linotype became the gold standard in composing rooms for nearly a century. The Mergenthaler Linotype Company manufactured and sold tens of thousands of Linotypes from its principal factory in New York City and agencies throughout the world. As the Industrial Revolution forever changed transportation with the automobile, the Linotype ushered in the golden era of letterpress printing.

Replaced by a series of technological advancements which began in the 1950s, the Linotype had all but disappeared from newspapers by the mid 1970s. The Burleson Dispatcher was one of six newspapers still utilizing the “hot type” method of printing when it shut down on September 25, 1985. Linotypes are still found in Texas, some in museums, but most are hidden in the shops and garages of men and women who learned a respect for an old way of printing.

Linotypes, when cared for, will run for decades. Can we say the same for our automobiles, computers, or cell phones? In a world in which technology seems outdated the moment it leaves the assembly line, Linotypes were dependable, efficient machines.

The Indelible Ink

The History of Burleson's First Newspapers

(c) Robert Griffith 2008

Newspapers have always been uniquely local. For a small community on the move, a newspaper used to be the only form of expression everyone could share and contribute to. Burleson’s rich history of print began when W.B. Newton, formerly publisher of the Vernon Texan, appeared in 1895 and began producing a newssheet titled The Burleson Banner (Beard).

Sometime after the turn of the 20th Century, Burleson businessman E.M. “Good Roads” Wilson (1872-1956) began publishing The Burleson News. Whatever happened to W.B. Newton and The Burleson Banner remains a mystery, but the News caught on. Wilson’s newspaper was in a wooden building between his furniture store (present-day site of Babe’s Fried Chicken) and a blacksmith shop to the south. While Wilson, whose furniture business occupied the largest building in Burleson at that time, published the paper, he hired an editor to oversee its operation (Beard).

In 1906, Wilson hired a new editor, Marvin Edgar “M.E.” Bockmon (1874-1948). Bockmon, a graduate of Baylor University, came to Burleson after a brief career with the Alvarado Bulletin. With his wife Winnie Faires (1878-1949) and daughters Lucille (1905-1993) and Alene (1906-1998), Marvin carved out a career with The Burleson News that transcended a stint with the Graford Monogram and time as an independent printer (Burleson Historical).

The newspaper changed publishers and editors during the 1910s and 1920s. J.A. Coolidge took over the News in 1912 (Beard). Throughout the 1920s and into the ‘30s, the newspaper was advertised as “A live paper published in a live town for wide-awake citizens.” George W. Vinson became the publisher & editor sometime after that date, and served in that capacity through May 1926 (Burleson News). Matt Neighbors took over the paper in time for the June 4, 1926 edition, and remained with the paper through 1931. On May 1, 1931, a day after the interurban electric railway ceased operation into Johnson County, Neighbors offered a sour reaction, “The only thing that can kill a small town is the indifference of its citizens” (Future). Sometime during the fall of 1931, E.M. Wilson put The Burleson News up for sale.

Mired in the Great Depression, few could imagine surviving on a small town newspaper’s income, but one man did. Robert Garland Knox Deering lost his job as an investigator with Dun & Bradstreet in Fort Worth early in the Depression. Out of necessity, Mr. Deering’s wife Elizabeth and their young children Bob and Winifred moved in with her parents in Granbury while he looked for work in Fort Worth. Eventually Mr. Deering’s father-in-law, Ashley Crockett, gave him a job at the Hood County Tablet. When the opportunity to purchase The Burleson News arose, Deering approached his uncle, John Searcy, about a partnership. In the harsh winter of 1931, Mr. Deering and his family piled into their old car and moved to Burleson (On Balance).

When Mr. Deering and John Searcy reached Burleson, they discovered a newspaper not far removed from the 19th Century. In 1931, The Burleson News was printed one side of one sheet at a time on an antique Chandler & Price Old-Style Platen Press. The partners had their work cut out for them, but soon new type and equipment began arriving (On Balance). Soon, the News was styled as “The Voice of Burleson.” In one of their earliest issues appeared a piece titled: “E.M. Wilson, Alderman, Takes Issue with The News on Chickens Running at Large” (E.M. Wilson).

Soon, the paper moved out of E.M. Wilson’s sprawling two-story building and into the one-story space once occupied by Brister Lee Co. Dry Goods (present-day Aiken & Ribitzki Law Firm). Deering’s eldest son Bob, then a teenager, helped clean out the building, which had been a “very smelly” feed store (Deering). The partners took steps to modernize the business, bringing in a used Babcock Cylinder Press.

The News moved again a short time later to the two-story structure at the corner of Main & Renfro (present-day Birth & Stewart Orthodontics), two doors from their previous location. Prior to 1935, the business expanded into South Fort Worth with a free “shopper,” The Morningside Herald. The success of the Herald compelled Deering to hire more help in the shop, and among those who came aboard was Sam Davis, an old pro at printing from Fort Worth. And after school, Deering’s son Bob swept the shop (On Balance).

Disagreements between Mr. Deering and John Searcy eventually soured the partnership, and Deering offered to buy Searcy’s share and go it alone. In the uncertainty of the decade, Deering’s move walked a fine line between risk and recklessness, but Searcy accepted the offer, and on May 2, 1935, the News announced the dissolution of the partnership (Deering Buys).

A fortuitous opportunity arose when Albert Hendon “A.H.” Loyless accepted an appointment as Burleson Postmaster in 1935, vacating his store at the corner of Ellison & Wilson. The building was constructed in 1912 for the Fort Worth Southern Traction Company’s interurban railway and tailored for Loyless, the ticket agent, to operate his drugstore in. Deering seized the chance to nearly double the size of his shop, and once again the News migrated to a new home (Beard).

Deering made significant modifications to the former interurban building, removing the freight dock which served passing interurban cars until April 1931. A large hole had to be cut at the rear of the structure in order for Deering to move equipment into the building, and a lean-to added along the back to house a restroom and materials. Partitions went up inside, forming an office and reception area. Over time, several windows were bricked over or reduced in size, and the attractive wooden double-doors at the front of the building were converted into a standard single-door entry. Above the doorway, Deering painted “Burleson News” (Beard).

Mr. Deering’s world came to an abrupt halt in 1940 when his wife Elizabeth died of cancer at the young age of thirty-eight. Elizabeth, a direct descendent of the Davy Crockett, assisted with the newspaper and print shop, standing by her husband’s side through thick and thin. Heartbroken, Deering took solace in his work and in their three children, Bob, 15, Winifred, 13, and Bill, 6. The family pressed forward. Bob Deering enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II, serving his country as a glider pilot in Europe. Mr. Deering helped establish the Lion’s Club of Burleson, chartered December 13, 1945, and became the first president of the group.

By 1946, Mr. Deering owned the former interurban building free and clear. In 1948, he married Hazel Moore of Fort Worth. Before long, the pitter-patter of baby feet overtook the Deering household again as daughters Sharian and Alicia arrived. Like Elizabeth, Hazel became an assistant editor and helped out however she could (Deering).

As Burleson began to reinvent itself in the 1950s, Deering recognized the need to modernize and diversify his business. Since its modest beginnings, the News had been set by hand. To fulfill his client’s needs, Deering had long been visiting a print shop in Fort Worth to have someone cast type on a Linotype and assemble it in galley trays for it to be printed once back in Burleson. In 1951, Deering purchased a used Linotype (Hill). Although its precise origins are unknown, it is likely the Model 14 Linotype came from one of the larger area newspapers, like the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. With the Linotype, Deering’s newspaper joined tens of thousands of print shops and newspapers the world over that turned out type “The Linotype Way.”

“Frank,” a Fort Worth man whose last name is lost to time, joined the News as a part time typesetter and jack-of-all- trades (Deering). Ethyl Faires (1889-1975), who had worked on-and-off at the newspaper with her brother-in-law Marvin Bockmon since 1906, learned the new mechanical typesetting process alongside the other employees of the paper. Deering’s youngest son Bill, who grew up around the hot, loud equipment of his father’s shop was among the first to learn how to use the new machine. The Linotype allowed the Deerings to speed up production of their newspaper and increase their range of services as a print shop.

The News became the Dispatcher on December 25, 1958 when Mrs. Boyd Roddy won $25 for her suggestion of a new name for the paper (Dispatcher). Burleson underwent changes of its own as the population ballooned from 795 in 1950 to 2,345 in 1960 (Maxwell). Among the highlights of the decade were the debut of W.N. Wood’s Shopping Center, the construction of a modern building for the Farmers & Merchants State Bank, and the opening of the Burleson Junior-Senior High School (present-day Kerr Middle School). Generations of young men worked for the Dispatcher, including David Hill and Paul Blackstock who cleaned the mammoth Miehle 00 Press. Meanwhile, Ronny Hughes, David Scott, and Blaine Williamson were among those to throw The Morningside Herald in Fort Worth (Meet).

Decades of Burleson History fills the pages of the News and the Dispatcher, but the Deerings ensured their readers received a dose of Texas and national news. In the mid-1930s, a column titled “Nobody’s Business” by Julian Capers, Jr. provided the latest stories from Austin and Washington D.C. (Nobody’s). Nationally-syndicated cartoonist Al Smith’s “Jackie” comic strip and a column by Joe Marsh of the United States Brewers Foundation turned up in the News late in 1950 (Cartoonist / I Have). Humorous columns about Texan life from Boyd House and “Uncle Bud from Bethesda” made for livelier reading.

Robert Garland Knox Deering died in 1973 at the age of 72. In a little less than forty years, Burleson witnessed tremendous growth and prosperity, and Deering’s paper put it in perspective as “The Voice of Burleson.” The young man who struggled to keep his family together in the Great Depression put all five of his children through college and became a respected leader in Burleson whose work with the Lion’s Club paved the way to the creation of the Burleson Chamber of Commerce.

Although by that time another newspaper, The Burleson Star, had appeared, Deering’s widow Hazel persevered, and the Dispatcher continued. When the letter presses of the 1900s were eclipsed by off-set printing and computer- typesetting, attention began to turn to the “ancient” paper and its fiery owner. When WFAA reporter John Pronk visited the newspaper in the early ‘80s, he described the Dispatcher as “a one-woman newspaper.” The Cleburne Times-Review published an interview with her in 1983, where she is described as “owner, publisher, editor, reporter, circulation manager, ad exec, composing room foreman, pressman, folder, addresser, and newspaper carrier.” Asked to describe her editorial policy, Hazel said, “Good things that happen in a community are the type of things that should be printed. I see no need in printing a story that is not going to do anyone any good” (Wilson).

Perhaps the most poignant column in the Dispatcher in the 1970s and until the newspaper’s close was Lucille Bockmon’s “Looking Back with Lucy”. Lucille, eldest daughter of one-time News editor Marvin Bockmon, assembled articles and tidbits from the News archives for her weekly musings. Through Lucille’s column, Burleson received a slice of life about a small town which by then had grown into a thriving city.

September 25, 1985 heralded the end of The Burleson Dispatcher. In the final edition, Lucille Bockmon wrote, “The Burleson News was, for many years, the “News” of Burleson. It will be missed by many Burleson (and other) citizens who regret to see it closed.” Hazel Deering retired the newspaper which began when no one had heard of the Wright Brothers or Henry Ford and when Burleson boasted less than 300 residents. In all the years Hazel and her husband published the paper, they never missed a single deadline, a rare feat in a challenging business such as theirs (Beard). More than eleven thousand people lived in Burleson when the Dispatcher departed (Maxwell).

In the September 30, 1985 issue of The Burleson Star, reporter Terry Evans wrote, “A piece of Texas journalism’s history died Wednesday when the pages of the Burleson Dispatcher touched its hot-type press for the last time.” Evans quoted Hazel Deering: “I have enjoyed, and still enjoy, publishing,” Deering said. “Once someone gets into printing, printing gets into his blood and it’s hard to get it out.” Evans quoted Patsy Dumas, then president of the Burleson Area Chamber of Commerce: “There’s not anything I’d rather see than for The Dispatcher building to become a museum. It’s such a special place and it’s not often that buildings still in use become historical landmarks” (Evans).

The Bockmon Family stayed with the News and the Dispatcher right up to the end. Marvin Bockmon, who joined the News as editor in 1906, continued to find work with the paper until his death in 1948. His sister-in-law Ethyl Faires, an amazing woman who never learned to drive but set type like the wind, passed away in 1975 aged eighty-six. Lucille, Marvin Bockmon’s daughter and writer of the column “Looking Back with Lucy,” died in 1993 at the age of eighty-eight.

Following the end of the Dispatcher, Hazel Deering retired to Jacksonville, Florida to live with her daughter Sharian. She died in 1995 and is buried alongside her husband at Burleson Memorial Park in the midst of Burleson’s pioneering spirits.

Although none of the Deering children pursued a career in printing, each has led an interesting life worthy of its own essay. Bob Deering, Mr. Deering's eldest son, passed away in 1990. His youngest son Bill has been a physics professor at the University of North Texas for many years. Robert and Hazel Deering’s daughter Sharian once remarked, “Printers ink is indelible; it’s there for good. Once you get it in your blood; it stays too” (Deering). The Dispatcher and the News are ingrained in the fabric of Burleson History, the bulwark of a town on the move then and now.