36th BIRTHDAY OF THE CROWLEY SIGNAL
Crowley Signal March 13, 1922
News Article from Adadia Parish
Submitted by Winston Boudreaux, 2006

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36th BIRTHDAY OF THE CROWLEY SIGNAL
Crowley Signal March 13, 1922

Thirty six years ago today, on March 13, 1886, the first copy of the Signal 
came from the press of its publishers, Felter & Addison, in Rayne, our 
prosperous sister town.

It was not the Crowley Signal then, but the Rayne Signal, which greeted the 
readers of what was at that time St. Landry parish, for this was even before 
Acadia Parish was carved from the mother parish of St. Landry, and as for 
Crowley – this now substantial city existed only in the minds of those who 
saw in the then worthless prairies an opportunity to build a city that would 
some day take rank with the leading centers of the state.

Not until 1887 was Crowley laid out on the Acadian plains, on land whose value 
can be indicated by the records of a sale of the 174 acre tract upon which the 
main business section of Crowley now stands sold for $80. less than 45 cents an 
acre.  Soon after the new town became the parish seat of the parish which it has 
retained and which has always identified with the progress made by the city and 
section since the first foundation of crowley’s success was laid on the unfenced, 
grassy land of old St. Landry.

The Signal has been issued each week since that time as a weekly paper and has 
grown in influence and favor with each passing year.  The Daily Signal started 
on September 1, 1898, by L.S. Scott, who at that time was in charge of the paper, 
has been issued daily except Sunday since that time, with the exception of a 
brief suspension for several months was made necessary by a labor shortage, 
the ravages of influenza and unsettled business conditions in general.

In the first editorial announcement of policy, the publishers said in part:

"The Rayne Signal has the honor to shed its luster for the first time upon the 
public generally, but especially upon this community, which it shall endeavor 
to carefully and arduously represent."

"Locally we will make it our duty to allow nothing of the slightest interest 
to escape us that will tend to promote the interest of our town and its 
citizens generally."

"We shall make it a specialty to advance the interests of our town, parish 
and the state generally, by advocating improvements of every description."

"We will also give attention to the promotion of education, and use all means 
in our power to encourage it in the state."

"In conclusion, we will make all due exertions to make The Signal a first class 
paper, and with these assurances on our part, we leave our success in the hands 
of a discerning public."

The Signal today is guided by the same purposes set forth above. It will stand 
or fall in the degree in which it measures up to the standard of service set by 
its founders and handed down to their successors, but we believe that Crowley 
joins with us in a seeing for the Signal’s constantly widening field of usefulness 
in the up building of the city and section from which it has derived its support 
since its founding thirty-six years ago.