Early Editorials

The editor and manager of the Pike County News, J. W. Roland, wrote what was the equivalent of today’s editorial page, although it was not labeled as such.  Eighty years later his ideas do not seem forward-thinking.  Here are two examples.

This is from March 26, 1926:

JUST A WORD TO PIKE COUNTY

Rowland says that Pike County has depended too long on the coal industry for its prosperity.  He suggests that agriculture should be Pike County’s future, and gives several examples.  He does not provide specific reasons for backing away from coal.  Pike County produced more coal in 1999 than the entire state in 1920, so his suggestion was wide of the mark.

This is from April 2, 1926:

THINKING ABOUT PROHIBITION

This is an editorial in which it is suggested the 18^th amendment should be called the Health Amendment because the name prohibition is negative and makes people want to do it.  Did he really think people would stop producing and consuming alcohol if the word “prohibition” was changed to “health?”  Sometimes it is not possible to tell if the author is serious or kidding.

Body of Girl Drowned in Marrowbone Flood Found 25 Days Later

Public infrastructure was minimal or non-existent in rural areas.  People would build their homes most anywhere, often without knowledge of their vulnerability in extreme weather conditions.  Articles such as this one from March 12, 1926 of the Pike County News were fairly common:

 “The last chapter in the tragic story of the cloud burst at Coaldale on February 14^th, when five persons lost their lives, was written in the finding of the body of Essie Sykes at 2:30 Tuesday afternoon.”

Early 20th Century America

The early 20^th century was a time of great change in America and the world.  In 1900, it had only been 35 years since the end of the Civil War and there were many citizens who lived through or participated in it or were the children of those who did. Congress was still dealing with legislation regarding pension benefits for former Union Army soldiers and their survivors.  Yet now they would soon confront a foreign enemy in another ruinous conflict that would be called World War One.  The Constitution was amended nine times from 1865 (the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery) to 1933 (the twenty-first amendment repealing the eighteenth amendment, which began prohibition).  There have only been six amendments since 1933.  The world also saw the assassination of a United States president, a worldwide disease pandemic that killed tens of millions of people, the beginning of the U.S. federal income tax, the first automobile, the first airplane, the first over-the-air broadcast, the first commercial movies, the federal right of women to vote and hold elective office, and the prohibition of beverage alcohol and the subsequent repeal.  

Powell County Has Most Unusal Highway Tunnel

This item is from June 25, 1926.  It sounds like a Jeff Foxworthy joke: no engineer, no instruments, no problem!

POWELL COUNTY HAS MOST UNUSUAL HIGHWAY TUNNEL

“The novelty is a tunnel, 725 feet long, cut through a mountain and originally constructed for a railroad line that was abandoned.  A remarkable thing about the tunnel is that it was constructed without the aid of an engineer.  It has a slight elevation and, having been put through without the aid of instruments, it is an engineering feat without parallel in the state.”

The Pike County News

A significant amount of the information on this blog comes from the microfilm of newspapers from the period.  They can be rich sources of information, but today's reader must remember that a newspaper is for-profit enterprise and that there usually were at most a handful of staff generating its content.  They did not have a perceived civic duty to report the news objectively.   

Eric Burns, in his book, Infamous Scribblers, wrote of the newspapers operated by the founding fathers in the 18^th century that saw “His newspaper was a business, and the news to him was the same thing that silver was to Paul Revere or glass to Henry William Stiegel – which is to say a product of his own manufacture, to be molded into whatever shape he thought would be most pleasing to his customers and thus most profitable to him.”

The local Pike County newspaper was known at one time or another as The News or The Pike County News.  Its exact beginning is not known, but only a few issues before 1925 have survived.  It was a weekly paper published in Pikeville, but carried news from throughout southeastern Kentucky.  Much of the local news was found on the front page, and consisted of civic matters, crime, deaths, and marriages.  But there was also a personals section inside that contained short statements about recent visitors to town and activities of local people who would otherwise never have their names in print.  These entries were obviously submitted by the persons involved or someone close to them, but they still said much about them.  They established their existence at a time and place and sometimes identified whom they associated with, what they did for a living, or what their interests were.  They imply that they were literate and were attached to a social structure in the community.  These are a few actual example entries:

-          Mrs. Linton Trivette was elected Vice Regent of the DAR chapter

-          Frank Trivette, Whitley Smith and others went hunting

-          Linton Trivette was a visitor to Jonancy last week

-          Arthur and Ella Trivette of Jonancy were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. M. L. Sowards Sunday

A related section of the newspaper was community news.  Here one could read information about goings-on in numerous rural areas throughout the county.  The information sometimes rose barely above the level of gossip and appeared to be provided by unnamed individuals who were the social gadflies of their communities.  These communities included, among many others, Jonancy, Vi, Greasy Creek, and Mouthcard.