Mary Hayes Davis was an American author, journalist, and entrepreneur who made significant contributions to folklore preservation and community journalism in the early twentieth century. She is most widely recognized for co-authoring Chinese Fables and Folk Stories (1908) alongside the Reverend Chow Leung. Published during her time in Chicago, the compilation was celebrated as the first book of Chinese stories ever printed in the English language and remains widely reprinted. Following this success, Davis turned her attention to preserving indigenous narratives, traveling through Oklahoma and Arizona between 1908 and 1912 to collect Native American folk tales from the Pima and Apache tribes. In the early 1920s, Davis relocated to southwest Florida, where she published The Hendry County News and operated a chain of seven movie theaters, including the Dixie Crystal Theatre. As a journalist, she demonstrated immense courage, earning the moniker "the heroine of LaBelle" from The Tampa Tribune in 1926 for her fearless reporting on the lynching of Henry Patterson despite threats of mob violence. Her newspaper later received the Florida Newspaper Association award for Best Community News Service in 1928.
