A May 1926 edition of the Mount Airy News. Articles include a local citizen celebrating their 90th birthday and information about Mount Airy High School

Twelve years and over 600 issues of the Mount Airy News have been digitized and added to DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, Surry Community College. These scans are brand new, with DigitalNC now containing March 1917 through September 1929. While the Mount Airy News is now published six days a week, the newspaper was only published once a week at this point in time. The Mount Airy News services Mount Airy and Surry County, and joins fellow Surry County newspapers including the Chatham Blanketeer and the Elkin Tribune.

An article announcing a meeting between NC Governor Morrison and VA Governor Trinkle

Looking through the Mount Airy News today, we can learn a lot about what concerned the people of Surry County nearly a hundred years ago. In one October, 1922 issue, the main headline was a meeting between North Carolina Governor Cameron Morrison and Virginia Governor Elbert Lee Trinkle to talk about building roads between Mount Airy and the nearby towns of Sparta, NC, and Stuart, VA, sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Mount Airy. Looking through the pages, we can see praise for local teachers and school board members, an article about local farmers joining a cooperative association, and an editorial piece denouncing women who are uninformed voters, when they recently earned the right to suffrage.

Reading these articles gives us an idea of what life was like in Surry County and Mount Airy at the time, and it is invaluable to us. To browse through other materials from Surry Community College, take a look at their partner page, or check out their website.

In the 1930s, watching Europe slide gradually toward war, Harry Straus foresaw trouble relying on France as the chief supplier of cigarette papers to the United States. He began researching and developing paper manufacturing techniques using flax, garnering support from cigarette manufacturers for a company to be located in North Carolina. In 1939, his Ecusta Paper Corporation began making cigarette papers in Pisgah Forest, NC. (See “Brief History of Ecusta Is Given” September 1, 1946.)

This image from the July 1949 issue shows a company picnic. There were separate bingo tables for white and Black employees.

The mill flourished during World War II and beyond, quickly diversifying beyond cigarette papers to writing paper and other flax-based products, eventually moving on to plastics and cellophane. It operated as a mill, under various owners, until it closed 2002.

The Echo was a monthly newspaper produced by the mill from 1940-1954. Like other mill papers from small towns (like the Badin Bulletin and the Chatham Blanketeer) The Echo not only describes events at the company but also documents the lives of its employees and the surrounding towns. Each mill department gets its own column, in which employees’ vacations, illnesses, social exploits, and private jokes are described in great detail. A typical paper from the 1940s shows photos of the many recreational activities provided at Ecusta (square dancing, baseball, and dramatic clubs) right after the “Safety Page,” which educates employees on mill safety procedures as well as accident statistics.

The paper changed physical format a bit in its later years, and included a lot more photos. However the details of employees’ family lives remains central. The final issue states that the company paper changed to the Olin Mathieson News in 1955, after the Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation, the current company owner.

The Echo is available online in partnership with the Transylvania County Library.