The following is an excerpt from ‘They Came to a Plateau’ by Jean Harslett and Mervyn Royle.
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The Border Post, from the chapter ‘Town and Townsmen’
The record of Stanthorpe’s newspaper is an outstanding one.
The newspaper was established by Henry Beauchamp Unwin under the name “The Border Post and Stannum Miner”, printing being in the hands of Joseph William Pillar.
The latter has been described as perhaps not a “Pillar of State” but certainly a “Pillar of Stanthorpe”.
Their office and printing shop was a bark and slab building near the corner of Maryland and Folkestone Streets.
The first edition appeared on 20th July 1872.
Because of its modest size when rolled – (it was printed on foolscap sheet size) – it was dubbed the “Boundary Peg” and by less polite the “Stannum Roarer”.
J.V. Williams was appointed as manager in Unwin’s absence in March 1873.
Pillar became a partner, and on the death of Unwin, the sole propertier.
Unwin’s obituary in the “Warwick Argus” of 13th August 1874 described him as, “one of the most honourable and least selfish men they had known”.
Pillar later disposed of “Border Post” and acquired the “Tenterfield Star”, but fell on hard times, and died of consumption, in Brisbane 1893.
Herbert Farley had the paper for a short time in 1885.
In 1898, J.V. Scully became editor and remained so for many years.
His son managed it for a short period after his demise, and then his daughter Mrs E. Barlow.
The name of Thomas Thompson also has a long association with the paper.
Mr Thompson won a Rotary Vocational Service Award for distinction in his vocation, and served the paper for seventeen years.
The name of the paper changed by the addition of “Stanthorpe” and later still by the deletion of “Stannum Miner”.
This historic link with the past is perpetuated, by permission of the properties of the Stanthorpe Border Post, in the title of the Historical Society’s Bulletin, known as “Stannum Miner”.
Other newspapers to appear briefly were “The Stanthorpe Illustrated” and “the Stanthorpe Star”.
