I found this column, with advice on a healthy diet, in an issue of the Marion Progress from October 19, 1916.  We’d probably do well to follow the same advice today. After all, who doesn’t want to avoid biliousness?

We’re in the midst of uploading issues of The Roanoke News (Weldon, N.C.) from 1878-1922, and have been enjoying a particular column called Local Intelligence. Running fairly consistently on page 3, the Local Intelligence section included short sayings, weather reports and predictions, farming and medical advice, the prices of various goods, as well as general commentary on society, fashion trends, local events, and politics – often with a bit of humor!

These sections were often quite long, sometimes taking up the entire length of the page. To give you a sense of the breadth (and somewhat random order) of these snippets of information, here is an excerpt from the May 22, 1884 edition (unfortunately, the poor quality of the microfilm has resulted in images that are blurry and difficult to read):

And here are some choice examples from the same day:

“Cherries have made their appearance and the people cherish them.”

“Garlic is no longer considered a cure for hydrophobia: this robs the disease of much of its horrors.”

“Don’t blame the dudes for wearing tight pants. It prevents rats from running up their legs, and consequently scaring them to death.”

For more of these bits of wit and wisdom, see the full Local Intelligence section for May 22, 1884, and be sure to take a look at other examples of the column in issues of The Roanoke News.

Piedmont Airlines was a mainstay at airports throughout the southeast from the 1940s through the 1980s. The Winston-Salem-based company often flew into smaller airports that were not served by larger airlines.  In North Carolina alone, Piedmont flights were available from Rocky Mount, Elizabeth City, Hickory, Morehead City, Southern Pines, Fayetteville, Kinston, and Asheville, among other towns, not to mention larger airports in Charlotte, Greensboro-High Point, and Raleigh-Durham.

With the centennial of the sinking of Titanic in the news all weekend, I wanted to see how the tragedy was covered in small-town North Carolina papers. There is a rapidly-growing list of titles available in the North Carolina Newspapers digital collection, so far we have only one title from 1912: The Mebane Leader, a weekly paper nominated for digitization by the Alamance County Public Libraries.