Thanks to our partner, Bessemer City History and Art Society, a batch containing an additional 3,500 pages of The Bessemer City Record and The Tri-City Record are now available on DigitalNC! These issues span from 1984-1985 and 1987-1989 and focus heavily on highlighting local news, events, and scenes about town. The issues in this batch published near Halloween feature fabulous costumes worn for the “Halloween social season” along with spookily decorated yards.
Bessemer City Record editor Lois Smith is seen here in her Egyptian Queen costume along with “Witch” Hazel Harmon, Ernie Kincaid as a California raisin, and first place costume winner Mrs. Florence Gossage. Mrs. Gossage, dressed as a flapper girl, designed and decorated her outfit with numerous handmade motifs.
In 1985, the title of Halloween House was given to a residence on Iowa Avenue in Bessemer City. The yard featured “everything that could be thought of with a Halloween theme” — which included a pumpkin man, corn stalks, jack-o’-lanterns, as well as a witch and some ghosts suspended from the roof. Featured in both 1987 (below) and 1989 (disgusted ghost), the residence at the corner of Texas and 11th Street appears to have taken the title of Halloween House.
To view all digitized issues of The Bessemer City Record, please click here.
To learn more about the Bessemer City History and Arts Society, view their contributor page linked here.
To browse more North Carolina newspapers, view our newspaper collection here.
