From The Pilot, June 27, 1984
Four newspapers (including two new titles) from the Person County Public Library have been added to our site along with a brochure about historic Hillsboro. The newspapers in this batch include a special issue of Southern Pines’ The Pilot celebrating the bicentennial of Moore County, most of the 2011 issues of The Courier-Times from Roxboro (some born digital), one issue of the Sampson Independent from 1995, and a few issues of Roxboro’s The News Leader from 1979.
One of the delights of the bicentennial edition of The Pilot is that it is full of little tidbits of Moore County history. One blurb celebrates the legacy of Flora Macdonald, the folk hero who helped Charles escape from Scotland after the Jacobite Rebellion. After she was imprisoned in the Tower of London and pardoned, she immigrated with her family to North Carolina (hence Flora Macdonald College, now St. Andrews University, in Laurinburg). According to this article, some residents of Moore County can claim her as an ancestor.
From The Pilot, June 27, 1984
Another legendary figure who makes a guest appearance in The Pilot (joke unintentional) is Amelia Earhart. Earhart visited the Moore County airport in 1931 in an autogyro, a precursor to the helicopter. Her visit was part of a long history of aviation in the area, which apparently tended to conflict with another hallmark activity: golf. One resident, hoping to get flights over the course banned, wrote, “I have long felt that the airoplane flying over the golf courses is a nuisance to the players. Today I was scared out of my wits, as well as others with me, when the plane shut off its engine and swooped down to a height of about 25 feet over our heads on the 16th hole, course 3… and coasted to the field amid laughter in the plane at our discomfort.”
To browse all of our newspapers by location, date, and type, take a look at our North Carolina Newspapers collection. To see more materials from Person County Public Library, you can visit their partner page and their website.
Front Page of “The Pilot” newspaper from Southern Pines, NC, dated August 7th, 1968
Thanks to our partner, Southern Pines Public Library, Digital NC now has available new additions of the local newspaper “The Pilot” ranging in the years 1956 to 1968. A local staple in the community, “The Pilot” covers news stories in Southern Pines and the surrounding areas of Moore County. Still active today, “The Pilot is published twice a week.
To see more of the newspaper collection for “The Pilot”, visit here. To view the collection from our partner, Southern Pines Public Library, visit here.
You can also check out our wide selection of newspapers throughout North Carolina by visiting our North Carolina Newspaper Collection.
Fourteen scrapbooks about Iredell County public schools are now available on DigitalNC, thanks to our partner, the Iredell County Public Library. These scrapbooks document the schools throughout the county from 1970 to 1981, including Mooresville High School, South Iredell High School, North Iredell High School, West Iredell High School, East Iredell High School, Statesville High School Union Grove Elementary School, Troutman Elementary School, and the Board of Education.
One notable topic in these scrapbooks is the planning for and opening of West Iredell High School in 1972. The article below is an announcement of the land for the school being purchased in August 1971.
Another event covered in the scrapbooks is the November 1979 Statesville Christmas Parade. The clipping below shows the North Iredell High School marching band in the parade.
Click here to see all Iredell County schools scrapbooks. To learn more about our partner, the Iredell County Public Library, visit their partner page here or their website here.
Vicky Hardister, Chief Majorette of Aberdeen High School, 1960.
We recently added our first five high school yearbooks from Moore County!
Carthage High School published the cleverly-named Egahtrac up until 1952, when it was renamed The Gauntlet (1952-1954 editions available). We also digitized the 1960 Timekeeper from Aberdeen High School.
Check out the yearbooks themselves here. These yearbooks were digitized with our new partner, Moore County Library. To view more North Carolina High School yearbooks, visit DigitalNC.
Early high school yearbooks from Pasquotank County are now available on DigitalNC. The Pasquotank County Library contributed 29 yearbooks from its local history collections to be digitized. The yearbooks range in date from 1921 to 1963 and represent several different schools, including:
Front Page of “The Sandhill Citizen”, January 7th, 1954
Digital NC now has new issues of The Sandhill Citizen thanks to our partners, the Moore County Library and the Moore County Genealogical Society. Published on Fridays, the newspaper covered news in Southern Pines (1919 – 1925) and Aberdeen (1949 – 1954).
Local stories included stories about small organizations such as events for the March of Dimes, which took on the initiative of helping citizens affected by Polio. In January of 1954, the organization raised $1,000 to help with its initiatives.
To see other issues of The Southern Pines, visit here.
Special thanks to the Moore County Public Library and the Genealogical Society for their support in helping to digitize these newspapers.
Be sure to check out DigitialNC’s extensive North Carolina newspaper collection here.
Another newspaper title, The Roseland Enterprise, has been added to our North Carolina Newspapers collection thanks to our partner, the Moore County Library.
This issue, from March 1, 1897, seems primarily focused on convincing Northern readers to move to Roseland, N.C. The Roseland Land Company, based in Boston, emphasizes the natural beauty of the North Carolina sandhills and its potential for fruit and vegetable growers.
“Among the many advantages of the recent Civil War which the South will reap in all the coming years, and which will eventually compensate her for the enormous losses sustained by the conflict, is the development of her great natural resources—her minerals and fertile lands—by thousands that would never know their value but for the enforced explorations made necessary in the trying days of the sixties,” the front page begins.
You can see the full issue here or browse our full collection of newspapers by type, date, and location. For more materials from Moore County Library, you can visit their partner page and their website.
Our partner, the Moore County Library, has recently contributed another newspaper title to Digital NC: The Yankee Settler. This issue of the Southern Pines paper from March 23, 1898 has several briefs detailing local happenings as well as world news.
One interesting snippet from the front page is this article advertising a pamphlet on consumption, or as we know it today, tuberculosis (TB). Back in 1898, consumption was one of the leading causes of death, and it had only just been discovered that it was caused by contagious bacteria rather than a genetic predisposition. Still, doctors were mostly at a loss for how to treat the disease; it would be another 30 years before penicillin was discovered and another 15 after that before scientists found an antibiotic that actually killed TB.
James W. Tufts, 1895
Instead, medical minds and entrepreneurs of the early twentieth century tended to treat sufferers with fresh air. One such man was James Walker Tufts, who founded the nearby resort at Pinehurst. Apparently, Tufts was excited by the environment in the North Carolina sandhills, which were described in 1906:
“It is doubtful there is any place in the United States where persons brain-weary and nerve-worn rally or make as rapid progress toward health and vigor. The weather bureau in Washington has observed much warmer than points north and south in winter probably due to the sandy soil, which retains heat and, being a great absorbent of water, prevents evaporation that would otherwise cool the air.”
The resort at Pinehurst officially opened in 1896, making the area a destination for anyone prescribed restfulness and fresh air. Even without the front page news, there’s no doubt that the disease and its treatments were top of mind for residents of Southern Pines, Pinehurst, and the surrounding area.
You can see all the materials from the Moore County Library on their partner page and their website. You can also sort through our entire collection of North Carolina Newspapers by type, date, and location.
We have another 30 titles up on DigitalNC this week! This batch brings us our first newspapers from Dallas, Fairmont, Lake Landing, Maiden, and Newland, North Carolina!
In the January 8th, 1891 issue of the Monroe Enquirer-Register we have an ad for a fledging discount store in Monroe, North Carolina called The New York Racket, which will become the shopping mall staple we know as Belk. Founded by William Henry Belk in 1888, the store would change its name to Belk Brothers in 1898 and go on to become one of the largest department store chains in the country.
January 8th, 1891
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
This week’s additions include:
Belhaven
Black Mountain
Creedmoor
Dallas
Fairmont
Forest City
Gastonia
Iredell County
Lake Landing
Lincolnton
Maiden
Manteo
Monroe
Mooresville
Newland
Rocky Mount
Shelby
Statesville
Swan Quarter
Taylorsville
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
This week we have another 70 titles up on DigitalNC including over 1,000 issues of The Robesonian, 1,000 issues of The Western Sentinel, 3,000 issues of The Reidsville Review, 4,000 issues of The News and Observer, and almost 4,000 issues of the Salisbury Evening Post!
In the March 8th, 1914 issue of The News and Observers we have an article detailing a practice game played by the Baltimore Orioles while in Fayetteville. This happens to be the game where a 19 year old George Herman “Babe” Ruth hit his first home run as a professional baseball player. Ruth was also given his iconic nickname “Babe” while in Fayetteville on this trip.
The News and Observer, March 8th, 1914
Image via The Fayetteville Observer
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
This week’s additions include:
Asheboro
Asheville
Belhaven
Brevard
Charlotte
Cherryville
Clayton
Concord
Cooleemee
Creedmoor
Durham
East Bend
Elizabeth City
Forest City
Gastonia
Goldsboro
Greenville
Kenly
Leaksville
Lenoir
Lincolnton
Lumberton
Mocksville
Mooresville
Moravian Falls
New Bern
Raleigh
Red Springs
Reidsville
Rocky Mount
Rutherfordton
Salisbury
Selma
Shelby
Smithfield
Spruce Pines & Burnsville
Statesville
Taylorsville
Washington
Waynesville
Wilmington
Windsor
Winston-Salem
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
