In 1841, when Memphis was only 20 years old, Col. Henry Van Pelt produced the first edition of The Appeal in the wooden shack where he lived. Printing it weekly on single sheets of paper, Van Pelt began an institution that 167 years later is the major voice of the Midsouth.

During the Civil War, the pro-Confederate paper chose to print its pages in exile rather than endure silently the Union occupation of Memphis. The paper moved first to Mississippi and then to Alabama and Georgia before Yankee soldiers destroyed its equipment. Within six months, editor Benjamin Dill had returned to Memphis and started The Appeal again.

The Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878 devastated Memphis and reduced the Appeal's staff to two, but the newspaper continued to publish, earning the nickname "Old Reliable" from its grateful public. It later became a regional newspaper for Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee, and in 1923 won its first Pulitzer Prize for efforts against the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. The newspaper netted its second Pulitzer in 1994, this time for editorial cartooning by Michael Ramirez.

It was also the only medium delivered every day during 1994's crippling ice storm. "Old Reliable" is still going strong. The paper is credited with initiating prison system reform, child-abuse legislation and riverfront restoration.