It seems from memory and a few newspaper clippings, that Albert Tyson founded the original newspaper in this little town, the exact year not fully known but before 1900.
Without a single subscriber, the first issue of the Rising Star Record came into existence on April 4, 1903. This time two men, George T. Barnes and T. B. Staton, put out two issues; when they got around to issue No. 3, they had some 300 subscribers. By January 1, 1904, according to some sources, they printed 500 copies to supply the demand. At the same time, the Record Company published the May Enterprise with a combined circulation of 900 papers. Three men then owned the Record Printing Company: George T. Barnes, C.A. Smith and his brother, Sidney W. Smith.
In 1876, a bright star began to shed its radiance and within its light six families came to Rising Star, not yet named. These families were W. W. Smith, Dave McKinley, Isaac Agnew, Fletcher Fields, Allie Smith and Andy Agnew.
Mail came in once a week from Sipe Springs by horseback. In 1876, Mr. Osborne, who lived two miles east of the new town, was the postmaster.
When time came for a postoffice, the name "Osborne" was suggested, but the authorities refused to designate the town by that name. The Rising Star Record on September 9, 1937 had this to say about the postoffice: The first postoffice was established at Copperas Creek on April 10, 1878, with Hendrick H. Osburn as its first postmaster; when this office was discontinued on February 7, 1880, the office at Rising Star was established, April 19, 1880, with George W. Hardin as its first postmaster.
The town was named by D. D. McConnell, an Eastland postmaster. He saw the crops growing at Rising Star when they were poor in other places, so McConnell decided that the locality must be a "rising star country," and asked that the community be named that.
The town was first incorporated on December 12, 1891, with H. E. Anderson as first mayor. The charter was abolished on August 1, 1905, and restored again September 15, 1905 with J. L. Wren as mayor, who served some twenty-five years later.
Rising Star newspapers were: Rising Star Record, established August 9, 1890 by Charles D. Spann; in 1899 Albert Tyson changed the name to the Rising Star News; in 1900 it bore the name of Rising Star X-Ray. In 1924 M. S. Tellers bought the paper and changed the name to the Rising Star Record on January 1, 1925.
Three other papers operated in Rising Star and were called the Rising Star Record, established in 1901; the Rising Star Signal, published by Bige Hardin, and the May Enterprise by John Adams. The Rising Star Record was the only newspaper published in the town in 1939.