Thanks to funding from our partner, Alexander County Library, over 3,000 issues of The Taylorsville Times (Taylorsville, N.C.) spanning from 1927 to 1996 are now available to peruse on DigitalNC. This weekly newspaper has focused on informing readers of local, national, and global news for around a century. Around the 1920s, The Mountain Scout and Taylorsville Times newspapers merged to form The Taylorsville Times and Mountain Scout. The merged paper published until August of 1933, when “Mountain Scout” was removed from its name. Since then, the paper has continued to publish under The Taylorsville Times title.

The earliest issues from this batch from 1927 and 1928 provide a look into the period’s perspective of American history through short hidden object puzzles they call “American History Puzzle Picture.” The puzzle is formatted with a drawing depicting a critical or well-known event related to American history, a short description of said event, and the hidden object the player needs to find. Though published as a simple, educational puzzle, these snippets provide a complex gleam into America’s period of conformist nationalism by showing who and what was considered pivotal in the late 1920s; interpretations of how people and places looked, language usage, etc. Take a look at and try finding the hidden objects in the—expected and, some not—depictions of American history below.

To learn more about and view other materials contributed by Alexander County Library, visit their contributor page linked here.

View all issues of The Taylorsville Times (Taylorsville, N.C.) on DigitalNC, linked here.

To view more newspapers from across the state, view our North Carolina Newspapers Collection linked here.