Viewing search results for "https://www.digitalnc.org/newspapers/the-transylvania-times-brevard-n-c/"
View All Posts

Remembering Fritz & Other Beloved Citizens of Transylvania County

A view of Brevard's West Main Street in 1925. Lining either side of the street are  two-story brick buildings and cars that resemble Model Ts.
West Main Street in Brevard, N.C., in 1925, also known as Fritz’s old stomping grounds.

More materials from the Transylvania County Library have recently been added to our site, including several issues of Brevard-area newspapers from the early 20th century, a set of telephone directories, and a couple of yearbooks. It is thanks to this batch of newspapers that the life of one of Brevard’s beloved community members was brought to light.

A short article entitled, "Fritz is dead."
From The Transylvania Times, March 10, 1932.

Fritz was “the famous Nobby Shoppe cat,” “well known among the business houses of Brevard” and “petted by everyone.” He was, according to his obituary, “the object of much admiration on account of his enormous size and his beauty.” Sadly, Fritz succumbed to illness, but his obituary shares front page real estate of The Transylvania Times with a feature on the Lindbergh baby and updates on the county tax penalty—in other words, he was a big deal. (Then again, this front page also features a story about Ralph Woodfin, a farmer who found two “freak eggs,” or an egg within an egg—known today to happen because of a counter-peristalsis contraction).

Fritz’s home, the Nobby Shoppe, was a popular women’s store on West Main Street and a frequent advertiser in The Transylvania Times. In the 1930s, the shop seemed to specialize in ladies’ hats, which sold for $1-$2.95. They also sold “frocks” and “triple crepe dresses” in an expansive selection of sizes.

A white cat lounging in a yard next to a white shed, a tall bush, and another wooden structure.
A cat lounging at the H. R. Bradley House in Transylvania County (likely not Fritz himself).

You can read more about the noteworthy community members of Transylvania County in the three newspapers just added to our site: The Transylvania Times (issues from 1887, 1932, 1953, and 1967), the French Broad Hustler (issues from 1893, 1894, and 1896), and the Brevard News (issues from 1905 and 1923).

You can explore the two editions of Brevard High School’s Brevardier (1972 and 1973) included in this batch here or browse our entire collection of North Carolina Yearbooks.

The full list of telephone directories included in this batch can be found here. These include the names and numbers of local businesses and individuals across the county from 1952-1984.

To see more materials from the Transylvania County Library, you can visit their partner page and their website.


An Unexpected Senator’s Column in “The Coastland Times”

Two adults wearing suits shaking hands.  On the left is Bobby Franklin; on the right is former Senator Sam Erwin.
Bobby Franklin (left) shaking hands with Senator Sam Ervin (right).

More issues of The Coastland Times from Manteo, N.C. are now available in our Newspapers of North Carolina collection thanks to our partner, the Dare County Library. These issues span from September 1963 to August 1964 and touch on many regional events of the coast.

A cartoon of Senator Sam Erwin's bust in front of the capitol building. Next to it are the words, "Senator Sam Erwin Says."

Within this span of issues is a column published by former U.S. Senator Samuel J. Ervin Jr. called “Senator Sam Ervin Says.” Ervin was from Morganton, N.C., and was known during his political career for opposing civil rights legislation. The Coastland Times was one of many N.C. papers that published Ervin’s column, including The Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.), The Yancy Record (Burnsville, N.C.), The New Bern Mirror (New Bern, N.C.), and The Transylvania Times (Brevard, N.C.).

Ervin’s column stands out today for how it differs from contemporary political propaganda. For one thing, it was published in local papers, which tend to focus on local and regional news. For example, one column from the September 13, 1963 issue runs next to a news brief headlined, “Sea Hags Will Meet,” referring to a local fishing club.

Another notable quality of Ervin’s column is that it is… relatively boring. Rather than employing inflammatory language or focusing on hot-button issues, Ervin tends to give technical overviews of the mechanisms of the Senate. In the column published on October 18, 1963, the Senator references a “controversial Foreign Aid Bill” and then writes, “Present prospects are that there may be no action taken by the Senate as a whole on the tax bill. There is a growing feeling that action on the tax measure should be postponed until after the President’s Budget message to Congress the first of the year.” Even though it is presumably written for a general audience, Ervin often chooses to use technical language and focus on bureaucratic details rather than argue for a bigger picture or stance.

You can read more of Ervin’s unexpected (by contemporary standards) columns and more of The Coastland Times in this latest batch of issues. You can also browse all of our digital newspapers in our North Carolina Newspapers collection. To see more materials from the Dare County Library, visit their partner page and their website.


1941 to 1975 Transylvania Times Issues Now Available

The Transylvania Times header. Under the header reads, "A State and National Prize-Winning Newspaper."

Picture of Margaret Rice in front of a Brevard College 1853 sign. The article details how be crowned as Queen of May.

The Transylvania Times, May 3, 1956.

Thanks to our partner, Transylvania County Library, new issues of The Transylvania Times are now available on our website. This batch includes issues from the years 1941 to 1975, adding over 1,000 issues. Published weekly, the paper focuses on education updates (such as at Brevard College and high school), music camps and performances, local and national news, and community events. Featured articles and topics from this batch include the end of World War II and the fight against polio.

Present in many issues of The Transylvania Times are advertisements and articles highlighting polio—information on the disease, how to keep your household safe and sanitized, and March of Dimes fundraisers. In 1955, the poliomyelitis (polio) vaccine was made available in the United States. In the same year, the March of Dimes organization had one of its largest fundraising efforts with the hopes of raising enough money to vaccinate nine million 1st and 2nd graders throughout the United States. In the Brevard branch of the organization, citizens were encouraged to donate what they could and to donate again. The more that the community donated to the organization, the more doses of the vaccine could be created and distributed across the country. Unfortunately the Cutter Incident (where some batches of the vaccine contained live polio virus) significantly decreased the distribution and the American people’s faith in the vaccine. Eventually that faith was restored with a revamped system of regulating vaccines and development of more polio vaccines such as the Sabin oral vaccine. Twenty-four years after the release of the first vaccine, in 1979, the United States was declared polio-free.

Advertisement for a Sabin oral polio vaccine clinic in Brevard on January 12, 1964.

The Transylvania Times, January 9, 1964.

To learn more about the Transylvania County Library, please visit their website.

To view all issues of The Transylvania Times, please click here.

To view more newspapers from around North Carolina, please click here.


More issues of The Transylvania Times are now available online

Front page of the March 8, 1934, issue of The Transylvania Times

Front page of the March 8, 1934, issue of The Transylvania Times

Issues from 1933 to 1940 of The Transylvania Times have recently been transferred from microfilm and are now available on DigitalNC. The paper, published in Brevard, North Carolina, recounts news from throughout Transylvania County.

As the “only newspaper published in Transylvania County” at that time, the publication includes information regarding local events, education updates (from both Rosman and Brevard high schools), notices of sales, society and club news, advertisements, as well as news from beyond the county. A regular section called “Scenes and Persons in the Current News” features international news covering topics such as the Spanish Civil War and the shifting hands of the British monarchy. Additionally, many issues include “The Sunny Side of Life,” a series of comics that regularly fill a page of the newspaper.

Front page of the "Special Fair Edition" from October 5, 1933

Front page of the “Special Fair Edition” from October 5, 1933

Significant local events are given special weight in this paper, such as the first county fair, featured in the issue from October 5, 1933. For that special issue, the front page features and the next several pages of the issue provide information regarding fair entries and advertisements for the best clothing to wear to the fair. According to the next issue, from October 12, the fair was a success with between four and five thousand attendees over the course of the two days.

"Great Throngs at First County Fair," from the October 12, 1933 issue of The Transylvania Times

“Great Throngs at First County Fair,” from the October 12, 1933 issue of The Transylvania Times

To browse more of our materials from throughout Transylvania County, visit here. Digitized issues of Brevard News and Sylvan Valley News both predate our holdings of The Transylvania Times, and we also have issues of The Echo, covering the nearby Pisgah Forest, available from 1940 to 1954.  Thanks to our partner Transylvania County Library for nominating this paper for digitization!


The Transylvania Times Now Online at DigitalNC

33 issues of The Transylvania Times have been newly added to DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Transylvania County Library. These are the first issues of the Transylvania Times digitzed on DigitalNC, covering from January to August 1933. The Times joins other newspapers that cover Brevard and Transylvania County, including the Brevard News, the Sylvan Valley News, and the Echo.

At that time of publication, the Times was a weekly newspaper, including local news, some national news, comic strips, brief prayers, and news about the local schools and colleges. In the article to the right, the Times announced the creation of Brevard College, a private college in Brevard, North Carolina. It was created after Weaver and Rutherford Colleges were merged to create a single co-ed Methodist Junior College on the property of the Brevard Institute. Judging from the article, the townspeople were very enthusiastic about the decision, with congratulations pouring in from as far as Charlotte. Brevard College eventually opened in the fall of 1934.

Gaining the Transylvania Times to our collection is invaluable to helping us learn about the life of North Carolinians in Appalachia in the beginning of the 20th century. To browse through other materials from the Transylvania County Library, take a look at their partner page, or check out their website.


All of Brevard News Now Digitized and Online

Eight more years and over 4300 new pages of the Brevard News have been digitized and added to DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Transylvania County Library. Previously, issues of the Brevard News only covered from 1917 to 1923, but DigitalNC now includes January 1924 through December 1932. This means that DigitalNC now contains digitized versions of the entire run of Brevard News, from its beginning to when it folded in 1932. It joins fellow Transylvania county newspapers the Sylvan Valley News, The Echo, and The Transylvania Times.

A snippet from a December 1927 article advertising Santa Claus coming to Brevard

In February 1930, farm agents warned local farmers not to focus only on tobacco for their sole income

Much of the articles cover local news, including residents of note and local politicians, events that were happening at the time, and advice for farmers in the area. For example, in early 1930, the Brevard Banking Company announced it would help fund 50 farmers to plant one acre of tobacco each in order to bring money into Transylvania County, like it did to nearby Madison County. However, local farm agents cautioned farmers not to get too carried away with profitable tobacco farming, and to focus on grains and other existing crops first.

To browse through other materials from the Transylvania County Library, take a look at their partner page, or check out their website.


Newspapers Selected for Digitization, 2017-2018

The following microfilmed newspapers were selected for digitization in 2017-2018. Thanks to supplemental funding from the State Library of North Carolina, we were able to complete more reels than in previous years. Reels were chosen from nominations according to our Criteria for Selecting Newspapers to Digitize from Microfilm.

Title Years Nominating Institution
Alamance Gleaner (Graham, N.C.) 1927-1947 Alamance County Public Libraries
Carolina Indian Voice (Pembroke, N.C.) 1977-1995 UNC Chapel Hill
Carteret County News-Times (Morehead City, N.C.) 1948-1960 Carteret County Public Library
Charlotte Post 1971-1987 Johnson C. Smith University
The Cherokee Scout (Murphy, N.C.) 1944-1988 Murphy Public Library
Duplin Times (Warsaw, N.C.) 1962-1985 Duplin County Library
Enterprise (Williamston, N.C.) 1934-1942 Martin Memorial Library
Farmville Enterprise 1942-1947 Farmville Public Library
Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.) 1943-1960 Fontana Regional Library
The Franklin Times (Louisburg, N.C.) 1925-1944; 1963-1969 Louisburg College
Hertford County Herald (Ahoskie, N.C.) 1914-1923 Chowan University
Journal-Patriot (North Wilkesboro, N.C.) 1947-1950 Wilkes County Public Library
Mount Airy News 1917-1929 Surry Community College
News-Record (Marshall, N.C.) 1976-1988 Madison County Public Library
Perquimans Weekly (Hertford, N.C.) 1944-1989 Perquimans County Library
Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.) 1948-1965 Southern Pines Public Library
The Roxboro Courier (Roxboro, N.C.) 1927-1935 Person County Public Library
Smithfield Herald 1901-1911 Johnston County Heritage Center
Transylvania Times (Brevard, N.C.) 1933-1940 Transylvania County Library
Watauga Democrat (Boone, N.C.) 1950-1963 Watauga County Public Library
Waynesville Mountaineer 1952-1956 Haywood County Public Library
Winston-Salem Chronicle 1997-2016 Forsyth County Public Library

DigitalNC Blog Header Image

About

This blog is maintained by the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center and features the latest news and highlights from the collections at DigitalNC, an online library of primary sources from organizations across North Carolina.

Social Media Policy

Search the Blog

Archives

Subscribe

Email subscribers can choose to receive a daily, weekly, or monthly email digest of news and features from the blog.

Newsletter Frequency
RSS Feed