Ashley Kontnier
It all started with an email from the Kyle Public Library in December 2024.
The library was assessing its local history section and came across a collection of Hays Free Press archives. In need of additional space, the representative wanted to know if we wanted any of the papers or microfilms for our collection.
Knowing that I didn’t want the archives to end up in a dumpster somewhere, I made an appointment to review what they had and decide if we had the space to store it ourselves.
Despite knowing I didn’t really have room for it, I left that day with a car full of physical papers and a couple boxes of various microfilms.
“What do I do with all of this now,” I asked myself.
You see, when a newspaper has been in business as long as we have, it ends up with a lot of paper. Our archive storage area includes 10 to 15 floor-to-ceiling cabinets that were beginning to overflow.
Knowing they would not do anyone any good stored in a cabinet, I started to research and found the Texas Digital Newspaper Program. This organization, housed at the University of North Texas (UNT), utilizes grants to digitize historic newspapers, which it makes freely available on The Portal to Texas History.
After reaching out, the team applied for a grant on our behalf and just shy of one year ago, someone from UNT visited the Hays Free Press/News-Dispatch office and loaded up a van full of history.
Within that van went nearly every single archive available in our office — upwards of 100 years worth of publications — along with a couple of rolls of microfilm borrowed from the San Marcos Public Library to fill in the gaps, all of which was transported to UNT for digitization.
Over the last year, the team has worked tirelessly to organize and digitize more than a lifetime of local history, as published in the Hays Free Press and various other titles that came before it. And, they are nowhere near done yet.
Since August 2025, the team at UNT has digitized approximately seven decades worth of editions, with more still to come.
Additionally, I am in discussion with the founder of the News-Dispatch to obtain archives prior to 2014, in hopes of having them digitized in the future.
It’s a huge undertaking, but it’s something I truly believe is vital to the communities we serve.
Very recently, I learned that other newspaper archive collections in the local community have been discarded entirely and truly, it hurt my heart to hear.
Before the dawn of the internet, physical newspapers were one of the only records of a community’s history. If we, the creators and holders of those newspapers, don’t preserve them for future generations, who will?
If you’ve never seen it, I encourage you to visit The Portal to Texas History for yourself. It is a treasure trove for anyone interested in local history.
Our collections can be found at:
• texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/HFP/
• texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/HCC/
Driving away from the Kyle Public Library that day, I laughed to myself, thinking, “What have I done?”
Now I know that, with the help of a dedicated team of archival specialists, I ensured that the history recorded by my predecessors will still be here a century from now.
Week after week, year after year, we record milestones, celebrations, controversies and heartbreaks. From elections to high school sports, new businesses to deaths and everything in between, our papers are filled each week with what one day becomes the collective memory of our communities.
Someday, long after those overflowing filing cabinets are gone — and long after all of us who filled them are gone, too — someone may search for the name of a great-grandparent, the history of their home or the story of the town they call home.
And maybe, because somebody decided an old stack of newspapers was worth saving, they'll find it.
Turns out, I didn't bring home a car full of old newspapers that day.
I brought home a piece of our history.
A history that deserves a future.
Kontnier is the publisher of the Hays Free Press/News-Dispatch. She can be reached at [email protected].
