We now have issues of The Wake Weekly and Youngsville-Rolesville Record from 1952 and 1960 through 1962 up on DigitalNC! The scope of the paper rarely ventures outside its tri-town borders, but offers a unique look into the lives of Raleigh’s northern neighbors in the 1950s and 60s.

In this batch we have illegal gambling parties complete with confiscated moonshine, the much-anticipated results of the Dairy Princess Pageant, writers expressing their feelings about this wild new thing called “rock ‘n roll,” and a teenage gossip column where you can learn whether Jerry Beddingfield and Nancy Pettigrew like Twist and Shout by the Isley Brothers or not. Every accomplishment was celebrated and every traffic citation documented. With a paper this intimate it’s easy to see how tight knit this community really was.

These papers were provided to us by our partners at the Wake Forest Historical Museum. For information about events and planning a visit you can visit their site here.

More issues of the Harnett County News have been added to our site thanks to our partner, the Harnett County Public Library. This latest batch spans from 1921-1930 and 1938-1945, encompassing some of the happenings of the county in the early twentieth century.

One such happening is the unresolved story of Sheriff J.W. McArtan, who also served as the county tax collector in the early 1920s. McArtan ran several ads in the Harnett County News reminding people to pay their taxes on time. One short article in the March 3, 1921 edition warned that those who failed to pay would be put on the county’s “delinquent list.”

But what happened to that tax money? Apparently, it didn’t all make it to schools and roads. An article in the December 18. 1924 edition reads: “Former Sheriff and His Bondsmen to Contest Claim: J.W. McArtan and Bonding Company to Make Denial of Statement that He Is $54,000 Short.” It goes on to explain, “The News is informed that J.W. McArtan, former sheriff and tax collector of Harnett county, has employed counsel to defend him in the matter of settlement with the county for moneys alleged to be due to the county by the sheriff.” According to the rest of the article, McArtan’s attorney argued that several of the books keeping the tax records had been taken out of McArtan’s office, so it was impossible to tell “how much money has been collected on the tax books since they were taken away… that is, [the auditor] does not know to which account moneys turned over to him may be credited, nor does he know for what year they were due.”

$54,000 is certainly a lot of money to be missing, even by today’s standards. But to put things into perspective, converted to the value of today’s dollars, McArtan was on the hook for about $937,250.

What happened to former sheriff McArtan? His name brings up a lot of results in the Harnett County News and other nearby papers, so it’s up to you to look and find out.

You can browse all available issues of the Harnett County News here and explore our digital newspaper collection by location, type, and date. For more information and materials from the Harnett County Public Library, you can visit their partner page and their website.

More issue of The News Reporter from Whiteville, N.C. are now available thanks to our partner, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This batch adds issues from 1925-1927 to our North Carolina Newspapers collection and features photographs of some of the architectural marvels from the early 20th century.

These papers were processed from microfilm, meaning that photos from the earliest issues in 1912 are a little bit hard to see. This photo of the paper’s editor, Larry Gantt, was brightened for better visibility.

Despite the darkness of the photos, some of Chadbourn, N.C.’s notable landmarks are still recognizable in the paper. This photo of the R.E.L. Brown House, which still stands at 108 N. Howard Street in Chadbourn, shows the building’s distinctive columns. According to the North Carolina Architects & Builders biographical dictionary, the house was built in 1909. It was designed in the Colonial style by Joseph F. Leitner, an architect known in our state for his work in Wilmington, especially railroad buildings.

The popularity of railroads was still going strong more than 10 years later in this 1925 issue, when the paper ran a feature on Chicago’s Union Station called, “Latest Triumph in Railroading.” The article reads, “The station is without a doubt one of the finest and most efficiently designed railroad terminals in the world.” According to the station’s contemporary website, it cost $75 million and 10 years to build (that’s $1 billion in today’s money).

You can see more architecture from the early 1900s in the rest of the available issues of Whiteville’s The News Reporter or explore our North Carolina Newspapers collection by location, type of paper, and date. To see more materials from UNC Chapel Hill, you can visit their partner page and their libraries’ website.