Thanks to our partner the Alleghany County Public Library, we’ve added several early issues of the Alleghany Times to our Newspapers of North Carolina collection. The issues range from 1933 to 1947 and include local news from Sparta, N.C., as well as some national stories.
One notable front page story is from the February 16, 1933 edition. Right in the center, a headline reads, “Bank of Sparta Robbed of $1,500; Yeggs Enter Through Door of Cellar.” (Apparently, a yegg is a “safecracker or robber.”)
The article goes on to describe how the crooks removed the hinges of the cellar door to enter the safe and used either code-cracking skills or prior knowledge of the safe’s combination to get to the gold.
Strangely, of equal newsworthiness (based on its placement on the front page) was the story of Marion Talley separating from her first husband, Michael Raucheisen (whose name doesn’t appear in the biography linked above because, apparently, the marriage was annulled after a few months).
And, perhaps even more surprisingly, both of these articles appear above an article detailing an assassination attempt on then-President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The article describes Roosevelt arriving in Miami on a ship, fresh off a cruise through the Bahamas, when Guisseppi Zingara, a brick-maker, fires shots from a pistol at him. Although the President-elect wasn’t hurt, Anton Cermak, then-Mayor of Chicago, was “shot through the body.”
To see all materials from the Alleghany County Public Library (including more papers), you can visit their partner page or take a look at their website.
Back in August, we announced our annual call for microfilmed newspaper digitization. We asked institutions throughout North Carolina to nominate papers they’d like to see added to DigitalNC. As it is every year, it was an incredibly tough choice – we are typically able to choose between 40-60 reels out of over 300+ nominated. This year we’ve chosen the following titles and years.
Title |
Years |
Nominating Institution |
The Alleghany Times / News / Star-Times (Sparta, N.C.) |
1933-1947 |
Alleghany County Public Library |
The Charlotte Labor Journal and Dixie Farm News (Charlotte, N.C.) |
1939-1953 |
UNC Charlotte |
The Daily Record (Dunn, N.C.) |
1963-1965 |
Campbell University |
The Eagle (Cherryville, N.C.) |
1942-1954 |
Cherryville Historical Museum |
The Highlander (Highlands, N.C.) |
1937-1978 |
Highlands Historical Society |
The Kings Mountain Herald (Kings Mountain, N.C.) |
1958 |
Mauney Memorial Library |
North Carolina Catholic (Nazareth, N.C.) |
1946-1968 |
Catholic Diocese of Raleigh |
The Roanoke News (Weldon, N.C.) |
1923-1944 |
Halifax County Library System |
The Valdese News (Valdese, N.C.) |
1938-1950 |
Burke County Public Library |
The Yadkin Ripple (Fort Bend, N.C.) |
1893-1944 |
Yadkin County Public Library |
For our selection criteria, we prioritize newspapers that document underrepresented communities, new titles, papers that come from a county that currently has little representation on DigitalNC, and papers nominated by new partners. After selection, we ask the partners to secure permission for digitization and, if that’s successful, they make it into the final list above.
We hope to have these titles coming online in the first half of 2022.
Students heading to a day of school at Jonesville High School, as featured in the 1956 East Bend Whispers yearbook.
Yearbooks from several libraries in the Northwestern Regional Library System are now online.
From Danbury Public Library, yearbooks from Sandy Ridge High School, Pinnacle High School, Francisco High School, Nancy Reynolds High School, Germanton High School, Walnut Cove High School, and London High School are available.
From Alleghany County Public Library, yearbooks covering 1959-1961 at Sparta High School are online.
From Elkin Public Library The Elk yearbook, from Elkin High School, is now online.
From East Bend Public Library, the town’s scrapbook celebrating their centennial in 1987 is available.
And from Yadkin County Public Library, over 50 yearbooks from East Bend High School, West Yadkin High School, Yadkinville High School, Jonesville High School, and Courtney High School are now online.
To view more materials from across North Carolina, visit DigitalNC.
Scrapbooks and other historic materials from the Northwestern Regional Library system are now available on DigitalNC. The online resources include:
The photographs, clippings, and stories contained in the scrapbooks give us a fascinating glimpse into small-town life in northern North Carolina in the middle of the 20th century.