Smith sold his interest in the Herald in November, 1854, to Dr. J. S. Jones.  When Dr. J. S. Jones took over the Tampa Herald he changed its name to the FLORIDA PENINSULAR and in August, 1855, sold it to Simon Turman, Jr., saying in the editorial column that he was forced to sell because "it did not pay sufficient to support my family.” Three years later William J. Spencer bought an interest in the paper.

POST CIVIL WAR

Because of the Civil War, the Florida Peninsular was forced to suspend publication in May 1861. During the war the Peninsular's press and typesets were taken into the country so the Yankees could not find them. When the war ended, the equipment was brought back to Tampa and publication was resumed on April 28, 1866 by William Spencer’s two brothers, John Edward and Thomas K. Spencer.  A couple of months later, John Spencer became ill. He had contracted dysentery while serving in the Florida Volunteers. He died June 30, 1866. Thomas K. Spencer carried on the Democratic paper.

RECONSTRUCTION

In 1868, the Peninsular got a Republican competitor, THE TRUE SOUTHERNER, claiming to be the "official" paper of the Sixth Judicial Circuit. This was in the Carpetbagger days, the Reconstruction era of the South. The newspaper was short-lived, having  little support from the populace and no advertising.  After the November elections, it died a sudden death.

Meanwhile, Republicans still wanted a newspaper voice in Tampa for the next national election in 1872, and so they purchased a controlling interest in the PENINSULAR. The Democratic editor retired and the new editor, C. R. Mobley, announced that the paper would become Republican. This change of complexion of the newspaper proved fatal, and the newspaper soon collapsed.

In 1876, the Democrats of the county had been without a journalistic voice for a couple of years and a significant election was coming up. Support was forthcoming to finance a new paper, so on March 1876, appeared a new weekly called the SUNLAND TRIBUNE. A Tampa physician with a sharp tongue and a flair for journalism, Dr. John P. Wall, served as assistant editor until Thomas K. Spencer took over publishing. Dr. Wall was then made the editor. Wall was member of a pioneer Florida family and was a versatile man of many talents, including physician, surgeon and Tampa mayor.

THE TAMPA GUARDIAN

Enter now the infamous Judge James T. Magbee, scalawag, a Southern turncoat who joined the northern oppressors.  Reconstruction Governor Harrison Reed, a Republican, appointed Magbee to be Judge of the Sixth Circuit which covered the West Coast from Brooksville to Key West.  Magbee became the most hated man in Tampa, using his position to exact his revenge upon his enemies.  Under his second threat of impeachment, Magbee resigned his post in 1874, having serving six years. He then launched into the newspaper publishing business, calling his newspaper the GUARDIAN.  The masthead later proclaimed it would be "Independent in Everything, Neutral in Nothing."  And so Magbee waged a perpetual war with editor John P. Wall of the Sunland Tribune.

It is into this setting where young D. B. McKay came into the newspaper business.   McKay attended school in Tampa until around 1882, and at the age of 14 became an apprentice printer at Magbee's Tampa Guardian newspaper.  Magbee continued publishing the Guardian a few more years until his death on Dec. 12, 1885.   Then C. H. Baxter and Harvey Judson Cooper, who had been hired by Judge Magbee to refurbish the unsavory Tampa Guardian, continued publishing the Guardian until they announced the publication would soon cease.    On Dec. 8, 1886, they changed its name to the TAMPA JOURNAL

SUNLAND TRIBUNE BECOMES TAMPA TRIBUNE

Meanwhile, on March 1, 1883, the Democratic weekly, the Sunland Tribune, changed its name to THE TAMPA TRIBUNE.  It editorially continued to fight for city improvement as it always had.  In 1887 Tampa was swept by another epidemic of yellow fever. The city was panic stricken and many fled into the countryside. Among those who fled was then-editor of the Tampa Tribune, G. M. Mathes.   He left a young printer-reporter, Donald Brenham McKay, in charge of the paper with only two employees to assist.

THE TAMPA DAILY NEWS

A daily paper named the TAMPA DAILY NEWS started in 1887 with O. H. Jackson as the editor and proprietor. Many people called it the Daily Kicker because Jackson was a chronic faultfinder.  When Jackson died, D. B. McKay bought the little paper and published it for several months.  But McKay had an opportunity for a business out of town, so he sold the paper to G. M. Mathes.   Before Mathes had made his first payment, McKay later wrote, "without my knowledge or consent, he moved the plant to Ybor City and it was destroyed in the great conflagration which reduced two-thirds of the cigar town to ashes."

BIRTH OF THE TAMPA TIMES

Both the JOURNAL and the TRIBUNE were underfinanced and understaffed and were limping along in a half-hearted fashion.  Silas Armistead Jones led a movement to buy the two small newspapers and start a new newspaper that would be a credit to the city and a powerful factor in the development of the South Florida metropolis and surrounding territory.  He founded the Tampa Publishing Company on February 1, 1893 with the financial backing of many leading citizens.  S. A. Jones became president; W. B. Henderson, vice-president; A. J. Knight, secretary, and T. C. Taliaferro, treasurer.  The company was capitalized for $25,000.  Immediately after the incorporation, the new company purchased the TAMPA JOURNAL for $3,500 and the TAMPA TRIBUNE for $3,450.  H. J. Cooper (of the Journal) was appointed general manager at $75 a month.  D. B. McKay, who was with the TRIBUNE at the time of the merger, was made City Editor, and the new newspaper was named THE TAMPA TIMES.

The mechanical plants of the two papers were consolidated in the Journal's plant on the southeast corner of Franklin and Washington, in Tampa's first brick building built in 1885 as the Bank of Tampa.. The first issue of the TAMPA TIMES appeared Tuesday, February 7, 1893.

BIRTH OF A NEW TAMPA TRIBUNE

Shortly after the two old papers were purchased and became the TAMPA TIMES, word of the merger reached a young, aggressive editor of a small weekly published at Bartow, the Polk County News.  He was Wallace Fisher Stovall, then 24 years old.  Reasoning that the consolidation of the two old papers into one might provide an opening for an "opposition" paper, Stovall came to Tampa to learn if his hunch was correct.  He found one man who had the same idea, Dr. John P. Wall.  With Dr. Wall's endorsement on a note, Stovall borrowed $450 to move his plant to Tampa and start publishing. The first issue of his paper appeared March 23, 1893. He called it the TAMPA TRIBUNE, the name of one of the papers which had perished.  The Tribune then began waging war against the Times with sharp criticism for everyone involved, especially for Jones.

MCKAY BUYS THE TAMPA TIMES

In the latter part of 1898, at end of the Spanish-American War, The TAMPA TIMES was in financial trouble. H. J. Cooper called D. B. McKay into his office. There wasn’t enough money in the till to pay for an incoming shipment of newsprint. Cooper had been offered a job in Cuba and McKay could have the management contract for the amount of Cooper’s moving expenses to Havana.  McKay walked over to the courthouse where he borrowed the needed $500 from former Gov. Henry L. Mitchell, who was then serving as Clerk of Circuit Court.  Within a year, The Times was on a sound basis and was speedily buying out the local businessmen who had stock in it. It took McKay until 1922 to buy up the last stock and become the sole owner.

McKay was a hard-hitting, outspoken editor who voiced his opinions on the burning issues of the day. He slapped around his rival, The Tampa Tribune, which returned in kind.  Simultaneous with being editor and publisher, McKay served a total of  14 years as Tampa Mayor.  While he was serving as Mayor, McKay didn't give much time to his paper, in fact in the four (non-consecutive) terms ending in 1931 he averaged less than 10 minutes a day around The Times office.