Several small town North Carolina newspapers from the 19th century now online
Much of our newspaper digitization is done from microfilm reels, which typically only have one title on a reel. However, sometimes a paper does not take up a whole reel and to maximize efficiency, when the reel was created, other small runs of papers are included. Often those small runs are simply a few issues of very old papers where the only extant know copies number 2 or 3 issues. This was the case with a reel we digitized this past year for the Bladen Journal. In addition to the Journal, 13 other titles were on the same reel and all have now been added to DigitalNC!
The full list includes:
Enfield Times 2 issues, 1873
Tar River Beacon 2 issues, 1876
Greenville Express 2 issues, 1880-1881
Cape Fear Lance 1 issue, 1899
The Beacon 2 issues, 1888
The Enfield Progress 1 issue, 1887
Old Constitution 2 issues, 1870
Franklinton Weekly 3 issues, 1883, 1886, 1893
The Rural Visitor 7 issues, 1898-1899
Graham Tribune 1 issue, 1900
The Greenville Index 1 issue, 1894
The Western Reporter 1 issue, 1881
The towns the papers represent cover the eastern and western portions of the state, with the oldest issue from 1873 and the most recent from 1900 – over a quarter century of coverage from across the state.
To see more newspapers, check out our North Carolina Newspapers section of the website.