ARN demolition: For more than 100 years, a central part of downtown Abilene

It's just a pile of rubble now, being scooped, dropped in dump trucks and carted away.

The Abilene Reporter-News building, a fixture at the corner of North First and Cypress streets.

The ARN, along with the banking operation that today is First Financial Bank, is the oldest continued business in city history. It began under a tent June 17, 1881, and grew to occupy much of a city block at near the railroad station, sharing space with the Alexander Building at the southeast corner.

The newspaper, then The Reporter, set up shop at its location in 1921. It became a morning newspaper, the Abilene Morning News, in 1926.

For decades, the newspaper billed itself "First in West Texas."

In its heyday, work stopped for only a few hours each day.

The morning edition once had an "area run" - newspapers printed for out-of-town readers that required transporting. The Big Country paper was printed first, around midnight, with a "city edition" printed next. The page deadline was 1 a.m., sometimes later to get in late Friday and Saturday sports.

Or final election tallies, if you remember how Americans hung by a chad for the 2000 presidential election result.

Thus, the big press rolled in the early morning hours, with those making local deliveries cued up for their count of newspapers.

Not long after they departed, newspaper staff began to arrive. That especially was true when there was an afternoon edition of the newspaper.

Memories: Parking, bats and Stormy times

There once were so many people involved - hundreds - that employees used the parking area on the west side of what today in the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature.

The "underneath" parking area was used for staff cars and parking for the "higher-ups" - the publisher, newsroom editor, advertising director, etc. Photographers were fond of parking facing out, to get a fast start on a breaking news assignment.

Photographer Don Blakely had his own photo car. He smoked cigars, and no one wanted to drive it after he had been puffing away. It was nicknamed the "cigar car."

Once, an editor frustrated by how messy staff cars had become, reminded staffers to take care of them as if they were their own.

Someone then reminded him, "Have you seen what their cars look like?"

The ARN building was home to bats, which occasionally took flight inside in the evening. They meant no harm but freaked out some reporters, who feared they were after blood. Others believed the bats feared reporters equally.

We had our share of roof leaks, and the newsroom located over the parking area would get chilly when winter winds whipped through.

And so, we brought space heaters to work. Until one owner forbade that due to the potential fire hazard.

Ironically, it was a fire that started the process to demolishing the building.

We always griped about the color scheme, which once was Dallas Cowboys blue and more-gray-than-silver.

For a stretch in the summer, the setting sun would blind copy editors facing the lone window.

The lone newsroom window was a source of pain. For years, the sports department was located there. Sports writers either work away from the office in the day or had night duty. Other staffers asked, why, then, did they get the window?

That issue finally was solved when, for some reason, a conference table was put there. So, day to day, no one sat by the window.

The Reporter-News communication antenna once was struck by lightning, and we could not use our computers for a time. This was in the early 1990s, about when the U.S. was fighting the Gulf War. We cobbled together laptops and got assistance from our sister newspapers.

We nicknamed our 2-3-day adventure Operation Desperate Stormy, in honor of our leader, A.B. "Stormy" Shelton.

His name lives on whenever the Hardin-Simmons Cowboys score a touchdown, and P.A. announcer Larry McGraw proclaims, "And the thunder rolls through the Storm Shelter." HSU's football stadium is named for the late publisher.

The city of Abilene for years benefited financially from the Reporter-News, in the form of parking tickets. Not wanting to walk two whole blocks to their cars in the west lot, reporters and other employees would park on Cypress Street, dashing outside, not for a cigarette break, but to move their vehicle to another spot to avoid a ticket.

The city once posted its top-10 offenders, and ARN staff always made the list.

One reporter, a repeat offender, once was shown the new directory at City Hall, You paid for this, the city official said, laughing.

Let me show you what else.

Fire does us in

The beginning of the end, as least visually, was the mid-November 2018 fire - reported about 9:15 a.m.

Those working evacuated, much like we'd done on drills for years. We gathered across the street at The Grace Museum to wait for the all-clear.

It never came. Instead, we watched a huge cloud rise into the blue sky, not knowing we'd go back in only to retrieve what items we could.

It wasn't so much the electrical fire that did the most damage but all the water shot at the fire from above. The water washed through the second and first floors.

Truly, the scene looked quite like a hurricane had blown through a coastal city.

While some repairs were made - we needed to do that to restore power for the press and to the least affected working spaces - we never returned. It made no sense for a dwindling staff to reoccupy such as a massive building.

Since then, the newsroom has been at five locations. Currently, we're on the second floor of the First Financial West Building.

Our address is 401 Cypress. Almost the same, but not.

We'll go down in history

For many who worked at 101 Cypress Street, the demolition of the building has been sad. Memories still haunted the hallways.

It wasn't just a job, and quite often was an adventure. It was where award-winning journalism was conceived and reporters were birthed who would go on to national acclaim. Jess Cagle, to name one. He traded the orange '70s shaggy carpet for the red one rolled out in Hollywood.

Politicians came by, and athletes who would win PGA golf tournaments, set pole vault world records, pitch in a World Series or play in a Super Bowl were photographed in our studio.

It was where singers and entertainers called for interviews. Ted Nugent called. Alan Jackson called. Glen Campbell called. Selena called.

To see the space empty now is quite a shock.

What would Stormy say? What would Frank Grimes, the editor who once was a finalist for a Pulitzer, say? His office, back in the day, was in the northwest corner of the property. It was the last part of the building to come down.

Ed Wishcamper, who spent 43 years there?

What will take its place?

There are plans and ideas. Some parking would be good for park, museum, and shop and restaurant visitors.

Whatever happens now is part of the rebirth of downtown for the next generations.

This historical maker will go back up at the site, noting journalism in Abilene got its start there in 1881.

It still lives, just not at 101 Cypress, Abilene, TX 79601.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: ARN demolition: For more than 100 years, a central part of downtown ABI