May 2, 1936 front page of the Kings Mountain Herald.
Today we’re pleased to share that additional issues of the Kings Mountain Herald newspaper have been added to DigitalNC. Issues online now date from 1914-2015 (with some years missing in the 20s and early 30s). It’s one of the most complete runs of community papers available on our site.
Some of the new issues were digitized from microfilm thanks to funding from Mauney Memorial Library. When a partner would like more newspapers digitized than we can provide at no cost, they are welcome to provide funding to subsidize getting them online. The new issues from microfilm span 1918-1919, 1935-1937, 1955-1957, 1959-1965 and 1967.
In addition to the microfilmed issues, we worked on some extremely fragile issues from 1914-1919. The Library received these as a gift in 2020 and contacted us asking about digitization. We’ve seen a lot of crumbling newspapers in our time, but these may win the prize. Take a look at the image below which shows how they looked as we gently laid them out for scanning.
The December 24, 1914 front page of the Kings Mountain Herald.
Like most of the print newspapers we scan, these were shot from above. We attempted to piece back together larger fragments. Each page was carefully turned, but there was quite a bit of “chaff.” It’s impossible to digitize an item like this without flaking page edges but the staff at Mauney Memorial Library gave us permission to proceed for the sake of making this physical object useful. These may be the only known extant issues from those years, which document World War I and its immediate aftermath, and they are now broadly available.
You can view all of the issues of the Kings Mountain Herald, and also see all of the items digitized for Mauney Memorial Library on the Library’s contributor page.
Hundreds of new photos, documents and artifacts have been newly digitized at DigitalNC, courtesy of our partners, the Kings Mountain Historical Museum and the Mauney Memorial Library. These digitized materials are part of a joint project between the two institutions, DigitalKM.
Vice President Rockefeller speaking at Kings Mountain High School in 1975 in celebration of the bicentennial.
Included in this batch is nearly 600 images and over 50 historical artifacts from Kings Mountain Historical Museum. These photos include blueprints for the U.S. Post Office at Kings Mountain, photos from the Kings Mountain Centennial parade and celebrations, school and class photos, photographs of military personnel, pictures of local clubs, bands, and sports teams, and much, much more.
Some of the artifacts from Kings Mountain Historical Museum include souvenir programs and other memorabilia from the centennial (100 years), sesquicentennial (150 years), and bicentennial (200 years) anniversaries of the Battle of Kings Mountain. This collection also includes a set of different photographs of military personnel, individuals from Kings Mountain, Trinity Episcopal Church in Kings Mountain, sports teams from the Kings Mountain High School, and much, much more.
A Boeing Flying Fortress, purchased with war bonds bought by Kings Mountain residents during WWII.
Also included are over 125 photos from Mauney Memorial Library and over a dozen historical objects. The photos include class pictures from schools around Kings Mountain, photos of churches around Cleveland County, areas and buildings in Kings Mountain, several aerial views of local schools, and much, much more.
Among these artifacts from Mauney Memorial Library are a collection of research binders by Bonnie Mauney Summers, which contain hand-written notes and charts of genealogical research on 3 branches of the Mauney family and others around Kings Mountain. There is also a binder of monthly meeting minutes taken by the secretary of the Kings Mountain House and Garden Club, dating from 1956-1963. Finally, this collection includes a series of different photographs of areas and people around Kings Mountain, as well as a batch of letters to military personnel sent and received during World War II.
Charles E. Neisler Jr, relaxing in the Davidson College Chemistry Lab, circa 1915.
You can learn more about the Kings Mountain Historical Museum by visiting their contributor page or by visiting their website. To learn more about the Mauney Memorial Library, click here to visit their partner page or click here to visit their website. This collection is part of a joint project to digitize materials related to Kings Mountain history. To learn more, visit the DigitalKM website.
We are one of 29 finalists for the Institute of Museum and Library Services 2018 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. Now through April 13, IMLS is asking the people who have been impacted by the Digital Heritage Center to share their stories. If you have a story you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you! Please contact us or share via social media by tagging us on Facebook (@NC Digital Heritage Center) or on Twitter (@ncdhc).
Today’s story comes from Sharon Stack, Library Director at Mauney Memorial Library in Kings Mountain. We have worked with Mauney to digitize a variety of materials, including an H. Lee Waters film of Kings Mountain in 1942 (shown below). Even more, we have enjoyed partnering with them as they expand their own digitization capacity through an LSTA grant joint project with the Kings Mountain Historical Museum. Sharon shared these thoughts in support of our Medal application and we reshare them today with her permission.
Kings Mountain High School Students from the 1953 yearbook, courtesy Mauney Memorial Library.
Unique. Special. Important.
Tucked away. Forgotten. Inaccessible.
For the Mauney Memorial Library and the Kings Mountain Historical Museum, those words describe the archival and museum holdings of our respective collections. The NC Digital Heritage Center has been a lifeboat for these collections. Our partnership is simple. When staff are traveling near Chapel Hill, NC we
take our collections and have the Center digitize and publish them. Now, years later, collectively we have built a body of work that is reaching critical mass. With funding from an LSTA grant, we are working with the Center to host the museum and library’s photography collection. This will give Kings Mountain and North Carolina residents’ unprecedented access to the library and museum’s holdings. These materials are helping us to weave a digital story to entice and engage residents to learn more about their hometown and the fundamentals of its soul and the people and events that created it. It is an honor to write this letter of recommendation for the IMLS National Medal on behalf of NC Digital Heritage Center. Lisa Gregory and her staff take very complex processes and make it easy for the professional working in the field to digitize and publish collections. They are easy to work with, accessible for questions, and technical expertise. They go the extra mile to finding solutions to make materials available electronically. This depth of service is what sets the NC Digital Heritage Center apart. For a small town North Carolina library and museum, the Center helps us to make our collections:
Unique. Special. Important.
Findable. Memorable. Accessible.
The NC Digital Heritage Center is deserving of this recognition of the best at work in libraries and museums today.
The latest from the genealogy shelves of our partner institution Mauney Memorial Library can be found online at DigitalNC. In his book, White Plains Goes to War: The Civil War Saga of Edward and Benjamin F. Dixon, David C. Neisler chronicles the Civil War experiences of his ancestors, brothers Edward and Benjamin F. Dixon.
Letter written by Edward Dixon
The first half of the book focuses upon the lives and experiences of the Dixon brothers as Confederate soldiers in the Civil War. Neisler’s research is based upon personal correspondence and a few other documents found in a relative’s attic. Copies of these materials and photos of the Dixon brothers are provided in the book.
The second part of the book looks at Company D of the Fourteenth Regiment of the North Carolina Troops, or the Cleveland Blues as they were known. Lead by Edward Dixon, the Cleveland Blues were primarily from White Plains, N.C. Following a brief historical sketch about the Cleveland Blues, Neisler provides an annotated roster of all 68 volunteers who enlisted at the White Plains Post Office on April 26, 1861.
New materials from Mauney Memorial Library are now up on DigitalNC. This batch includes two City Directories from Kings Mountain, as well as a time book for Kings Mountain Manufacturing Company, and a collection of monthly letters to men in armed forces during WWII from Neisler Mills.
Believing that employees from Neisler Mills serving in World War II would wish to hear news from home, C.E. Neisler Jr., the President of Neisler Mills, organized an occasional letter “of news and happenings” to be sent. The first letter in the collection was sent in August of 1942, and the last was sent in April of 1945. All letters are signed with the pseudonym, “the Old Mountaineer.” The letters include updates about the mill, political happenings, the health and goings on of residents of Kings Mountain, and listings of new Neisler Mills entrants into the armed forces. The Old Mountaineer kept a light tone in many of his letters. One letter includes news that “Will Parrish’s face had been red for the past two weeks” for telling an off-color joke by accident in front of Mrs. Gamble at the filling station. Many of these letters also include a section called, “The Home Front News,” which gathers short excerpts from letters sent in by service members.
A sign off from the Old Mountaineer
A bit of humor in the Home Front News section
Take a look at the new materials by clicking the links below:
To see more materials from Mauney Memorial Library, visit their partner page or website.
We are happy to announce the addition of three new yearbooks from King’s Mountain High School in King’s Mountain, N.C., contributed by our partner the Mauney Memorial Library! These issues of Milestones cover the years 1970, 1971, and 1973 and depict classic ’70s fashion, hair, and wisdom. These yearbooks are full of snarky captions, allusions to the political issues of the era, and insights into the state of modern life.
Located just outside of Charlotte, King’s Mountain High School is still active today. Its rich history is well-represented on our site, with yearbooks dating from 1939, photographs, and programs. Do you recognize anyone you know? To view more yearbooks from other schools across North Carolina visit The North Carolina Yearbook collection linked here.
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.
Thanks to our partners at Mauney Memorial Library, DigitalNC is proud to add 1,700 new additions of The Kings Mountain Herald as well as 3 Kings Mountain High School yearbooks. Digitization of the newspapers was funded by Mauney Memorial Library, with hosting provided by DigitalNC.
Distributed from the city of Kings Mountain, the many additions of The Kings Mountain Herald span 1982 – 2015, covering decades of local Cleveland and Gaston county news. Traditional newspaper topics, such as sports, obituaries, and opinion pieces, are continuously explored throughout the years, interspersed in the ’00s with supplements such as “The Great Home Search” and “Medical Matters“. Of note, police reports appear frequently in all decades.
The newest Kings Mountain High School yearbooks, each titled Milestones, come from 1967, 1968, and 1969. They showcase the high school activities of ’60s Kings Mountain teens, including a wide array of clubs.
VICA (Vocational Industrial Club of America) Auto Mechanics club members, Milestones, 1968.
To learn more about The Kings Mountain Herald and see all issues, click here. For more information on Mauney Memorial Library, visit their homepage here, and to view more digitized materials from Kings Mountain and beyond, click here.
Above images: The Heritage of Cleveland County Vol. I, page 2 and 3
Thanks to our partner Mauney Memorial Library, genealogy history from Cleveland County is now available on DigitalNC.
Created by the Cleveland County Historical Association and Museum, these volumes document the histories of families and institutions that might have otherwise been lost with the passing of older citizens. County citizens, churches, schools, civic clubs, and other entities were invited to submit stories and material for publication. The volumes include helpful indexes for easy searching and are also full-text searchable, making genealogy research faster and more efficient. This could also be useful resource for teachers working with North Carolina or Cleveland County history.
The first volume is linked below:
To learn more about Mauney Memorial Library please visit the contributor page or the home page. To access more great resources for genealogy and family research, please visit the North Carolina Memory Collection, which contains many items that are also full-text searchable.
Edited December 13, 2016 – At the request of the contributing institution, Cleveland County Heritage Vol. II has been removed from our website at this time. We hope in the future to have it available to the public.
May 11, 1940 issue of The Kings Mountain Herald Newspaper.
During our last call for newspaper digitization, the Kings Mountain Herald was nominated by Mauney Memorial Library. Issues of the paper from December 1937-December 1954 have now been added to DigitalNC.
The Herald, with the byline “Kings Mountain’s RELIABLE Newspaper,” is a mixture of brief national news, local news and events, and local editorials. For the relatively small Kings Mountain (the paper’s masthead in December 1954 lists a population of 7,206) the local school band’s success in competition is first page news (see right). Newspapers that focus on items of local news are often the most useful for genealogical research, and getting a sense of what was important to a community 50-100 years ago.
You can other items shared by Mauney Memorial Library on their contributor page, and many more items from Kings Mountain on DigitalNC.
