pNewspaper publishers played a crucial role in transforming Texas into a modern state. By promoting expanded industrialization and urbanization, as well as a more modern image of Texas as a southwestern, rather than southern, state, news barons in the early decades of the twentieth century laid the groundwork for the enormous economic growth and social changes that followed World War II. Yet their contribution to the modernization of Texas is largely unrecognized.p pThis book investigates how newspaper owners such as A. H. Belo and George B. Dealey of the iDallas Morning Newsi, Edwin Kiest of the iDallas Times Heraldi, William P. Hobby and Oveta Culp Hobby of the iHouston Posti, Jesse H. Jones and Marcellus Foster of the iHouston Chroniclei, and Amon G. Carter Sr. of the iFort Worth Star-Telegrami paved the way for the modern state of Texas. Patrick Cox explores how these news barons identified the needs of the state and set out to attract the private investors and public funding that