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Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame

Caro Brown

Caro Brown

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Caro Brown

Alice Daily Echo

Hall of Fame Class of 2016

Alice Daily Echo reporter Caro Brown earned a Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in 1955 “for a series of news stories dealing with the successful attack on one-man political rule in neighboring Duval County, written under unusual pressure both of edition time and difficult, even dangerous circumstances.”

Also, as stated in the Pulitzer citation, “Mrs. Brown dug into the facts behind the dramatic daily events, as well, and obtained her stories in spite of the bitterest political opposition, showing professional skill and courage.”

Brown was assigned to cover the activities of George B. Parr and family in Duval County after another reporter, Bill Mason, was killed while covering the same beat. Over a two-year period, she reported on court inquiries into the affairs of Parr, despite attempts by county officials to stonewall on her requests for public records. Her reportage was noticed and picked up by The Associated Press.

Brown, who joined the newspaper in 1947, gained national attention in 1954 when witnesses said she personally quelled an altercation between Parr and an armed Texas Ranger, pushing between the two men. Parr later claimed Brown saved his life in the incident.

The Texas Rangers had warned Brown “that her life was in danger and that she should always carry a gun,” wrote Brown’s daughter, Carolou Brown Mitchell of Fort Worth, who recalled that her mother kept a pistol in the glove compartment of her car.

Brown was born in 1908 at Baber, Texas, a sawmill town in Angelina County. She attended Texas Woman’s University in Denton in 1925-26 but was expelled for attending a function off campus without permission. She later attended other Texas colleges, including Southwestern University at Georgetown.

Brown left the Alice Daily Echo soon after she won the Pulitzer, and, her daughter wrote, “except for short stints, she never worked in journalism again.”