Holtsinger moved to Tampa in 1905 from Dandridge, Tennessee and joined fellow Tennessean Alfred Swann in the land-development business, constructing homes in Hyde Park, Tampa, Ridgewood Park, Tampa, Ybor City and West Tampa.
Gannett published it for several years, but in 1979 announced that it was assuming publication of the Tennessean while selling the Banner back to local owners Irby C. Simpkins, Jr., Brownlee O. Currey, and John Jay Hooker (Hooker later sold his stake in the paper to Simpkins and Currey).
They were the pride of the N&W, pulling crack passenger trains such as the Cavalier, the Pocahontas, and the Powhatan Arrow, as well as ferrying the Southern Railway's Tennessean and Pelican between Monroe, Virginia and Bristol, Tennessee.
In 1957, Tennessean cartoonist Tom Little won a Pulitzer Prize for his cartoon encouraging parents to have their children immunized against polio.