Joe C. Minor and William E. Rush collecting quarter folded copies of The Appalachian – 1956
In July 2014, we made available a variety of photographs collected by the nonprofit organization Historic Boone and housed at Watauga County Public Library. We have now added more photographs to the exhibit, including images documenting the 1949 Watauga County Centennial Celebration, photographs of Governor Holshouser, and a selection of photographs by local Boone photographer, Palmer Blair.
Bearded Buddies at the Watauga Centennial – 1949. Photograph by Palmer Blair.
Snow Scene by Palmer Blair. Won 3rd Award at the NCPA Convention
In addition to the photographs, there are also several postcards featuring historic buildings and landscapes in the area as well as several ephemera including: Land of OZ brochure and map, local menus, post office stamps, and publications from local schools and businesses.
Map of the Land of Oz at Beech Mountain in Banner Elk
To learn more about Historic Boone, visit here.
Boone, 1903-1904
Watauga County Centennial: Daniel Boone
Photographs collected by Historic Boone and housed at Watauga County Public Library are now available online through the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center. Historic Boone, formed in 1994, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the collection, preservation, and exhibition of materials related to the history of Boone, North Carolina. The photographs depict life in and around Boone from the 1880s through the 1990s.
The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. In addition to portraits of long-time residents, there are aerial and landscape photographs of the town. Group portraits of students and civic groups are plentiful as are photos of historic buildings, some of which are no longer standing. Streetscapes are also well represented while a number of photographs document the 1949 Watauga County Centennial Celebration. Anyone with an interest in the history of Boone or Watauga County should find this collection helpful.
More information about Historic Boone is available here.
Grandfather Mountain Operation
This week we have another 30 newspaper titles up on DigitalNC! In the September 3, 1891 issue of Boone’s Watauga Democrat we have an article describing the terrible train wreck of Bostian’s Bridge in Statesville. This fatal accident sparked a legendary North Carolina ghost story, but perhaps even scarier are the boogeymen railroad companies would often create to avoid accountability: train wreckers.
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Watauga Democrat, September 3, 1891
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News and Observer, July 7, 1898
By 1891 the railroad system in America had exploded, allowing for easier cross-country travel and bringing with it fresh new paranoia about disasters and scary strangers coming to your town. Blaming a wreck on some shady character was a lot easier than paying a fortune on settlements due to negligence. Almost immediately after the August 27, 1891 accident, the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company put out ads offering a $10,000 reward for the apprehension of the perpetrator, leading to many being accused and arrested (conveniently with the help of a railroad detective).
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News & Observer, September 4, 1891
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Greensboro Workman, September 16, 1891
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Asheville Citizen, October 15, 1891
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Wilmington Messenger, February 3, 1892
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News & Observer, August 29, 1897
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Durham Daily Globe, September 26, 1891
The editor at Statesville’s Landmark provides us with an incredibly detailed account of the accident and the recovery effort, complete with interviews from survivors and witnesses where they describe rotten cross-ties and rail workers throwing this evidence into the creek below the bridge. Many of those interviewed make a point to mention that there were no signs of robbery after the crash, which doesn’t exactly support the idea of this being some dastardly deed by a bandit.
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
This week’s additions include:
Asheville
Boone
Burlington
Chapel Hill
Durham
Fayetteville
Fairfield
Gastonia
Holly Springs
Jackson
Kinston
Lexington
Lincolnton
Pittsboro
Raleigh
Salisbury
Tarboro
Winston
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
This week we are sharing the second installment of titles on DigitalNC that were brought to us by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) in a cooperative effort with the North Carolina Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries.
The NDNP is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress with the intention of creating a vast, searchable database of newspapers and other historical documents. You can currently search all of the NDNP issues on the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America website. Those same issues will be available on our newspaper database, allowing you to search that content alongside the other papers on DigitalNC. The week’s titles are the following:
- Watauga Democrat (Boone, N.C.) – 1888-1934
- Carolina Watchman (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1931-1937
- The Tarborough Southerner (Tarboro, N.C.) – 1848-1876
- The Charlotte Democrat (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1853-1887
- Weekly Standard (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1836-1858
- Marion Progress (Marion, N.C.) – 1930-1931
- The News and Views (Jacksonville, N.C.) – 1942-1952
- Fisherman & Farmer (Edenton, N.C.) – 1889-1901
- The Farmer and Mechanic (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1877-1915
- The Free Press (Southern Pines, N.C.) – 1898-1905
- The Commonwealth (Scotland Neck, N.C.) – 1888
- The Review (High Point, N.C.) – 1910-1921
- Rockingham Post-Dispatch (Rockingham, N.C.) – 1917-1922
- French Broad Hustler (Hendersonville, N.C.) – 1905-1919
- The Durham Daily Globe (Durham, N.C.) – 1887-1894
- The Wilmington Messenger (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1897-1908
- Journal of Freedom (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1865
- The Sun (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1883-1885
- The North-Carolinian (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1842-1857
- Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1941-1946
- The Robesonian (Lumberton, N.C.) – 1872-1918
- Western Sentinel (Winston-Salem, N.C.) – 1886
- The State Chronicle (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1883-1892
- The Daily Caucasian (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1895
- The Gold Leaf (Henderson, N.C.) – 1882-1911
- The Caucasian (Clinton, N.C.) – 1884-1913
- The Durham Recorder (Durham, N.C.) – 1879-1911
- The Hillsborough Recorder (Hillsborough, N.C.) – 1836-1879
- Henderson Daily Dispatch (Henderson, N.C.) – 1932-1940
- Hillsboro Recorder (Hillsborough, N.C.) – 1887-1888
- The Carolinian (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1935-1939
- The Lincoln Times (Lincolnton, N.C.) – 1935-1962
- The Southern News (Asheville, N.C.) – 1938-1962
- Charlotte Messenger (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1882-1889
- The Weekly Intelligencer (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1864-1865
- The Educator (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1874-1875
- The Chapel Hill Weekly (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1930-1934
- Wilmington Journal (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1844-1876
- Cherokee Scout (Murphy, N.C.) – 1890-1917
- The Daily Confederate (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1864-1865
- The Gazette (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1891-1898
- Our Living and Our Dead (New Bern, N.C.) – 1873-1874
- North Carolina Republican (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1880
- Weekly Confederate (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1864-1865
- The Monroe Journal (Monroe, N.C.) – 1903-1922
- The Journal of Industry (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1879-1880
- North Carolina Gazette (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1885
- The Skyland Post (West Jefferson, N.C.) – 1935-1947
- The Coastland Times (Manteo, N.C.) – 1951-1962
- The Burke County News (Morganton, N.C.) – 1899-1900
- The Fool-Killer (Boomer, N.C.) – 1910-1922
- Orange County Observer (Hillsborough, N.C.) – 1880-1916
This concludes the list of newspapers that we are sharing from the NDNP. If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
The Wayne County Public Library has provided three more scrapbooks for digitization. These scrapbooks feature local baseball player Bobby Wilson throughout his time playing for the Baltimore Orioles (1948), Toronto Maple Leafs (1953-1954), and Indianapolis Indians (1952). Mr. Wilson was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, but he played baseball all over the country during his career.
“Bobbing Bobby” Wilson
A hit by Bobby Wilson drives a run in
Wayne County Public Library has provided a number of scrapbooks about Bobby Wilson in the past, as well as other baseball players and teams. For more information about Mr. Wilson and his career, see these previous blog posts, and for more information and to view the other materials from Wayne County Public Library, visit their contributor page.
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