The W. Walworth Harrison Public Library is located at #1 Lou Finney Lane in Greenville, Texas. The facility opened in the summer of 1996 and contains an extensive collection of genealogical materials. Copies of at least three Greenville newspapers from the fall of 1894 through the present can be viewed on microfilm.
Some of you may follow me on Facebook. For two years now I have posted a brief sentence or two about something that happened either here in Greenville or out in the county. A few times I have posted international news, especially if it related to World War I.
Surprisingly, no one has ever asked me how I gather that news. No, I don’t make it up but I do have several sources I consult. The W. Walworth Harrison Public Library here in Greenville has a wonderful collection of newspapers from the fall of 1894. So, if I have time I use those. Some months are missing, so occasionally I come home empty handed.
How those newspapers came to be at the library is an interesting story. In the early 1980s there were two delightful ladies from Commerce who strongly believed in preserving Hunt County History. Dorothy Moore and Jeanne Brannom discovered that the County Attorney’s office had that collection of old newspapers stored in the old jail in the courthouse. The ladies told the County Commissioners they would be responsible for having the newspapers moved and microfilmed if the commissioners would release them to the Hunt County Historical Commission. The commission followed through and today the films are available to the public at no cost.
My second source is a website, GenealogyBank.com. It is a subscription site, but since I use it very often, I can justify the cost. While it was intended for family history, I have learned how to maneuver the search engine to find articles pertinent to specific locales, using advanced search. One of the interesting features of GenealogyBank is their collection of African-American newspapers. The Freeman was published in Indianapolis, Indiana from 1888-1916. However, it was a national newspaper with reporters throughout the country. One such reporter happened to own the Past Time Theater here in Greenville. One or two times a month I can find articles pertaining to persons here.
Then there is Ancestry.com. I have used this site for several years; it is available at the Harrison Public Library at no cost, and probably one of the most used genealogy websites available. They also have old newspapers digitized and available online. Both Ancestry.com and GenealogyBank.com use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to make finding names of persons and places easy.
There are no Greenville papers available online at either site, but Ancestry.com has the weekly Commerce Journal. It’s pretty much news from the northeast part of the county, but they did cover the courts here in Greenville diligently.
Here are a few offerings for December 1915. On December 2, the Mother’s Club met at Ross High School and matters of much interest to the mother, teacher, and child were discussed. This club is doing much for the schools of our city. On December 10, the Matrons Social Club met with Mrs. Rosa Brooks. The following menu was served: chili and crackers, fried chicken, cream potatoes, hot biscuits, coffee, whipped cream and fruit jelly with cake. Both of these came from the Freeman.
From Commerce came the news that Prof and Mrs. T. C. Martin were hurriedly called to Cameron last Saturday to see his brother, who is very ill.
And of course, from Greenville came the news that at the closing event of the fall term’s work at Wesley College, students’ banquet was held on Friday night at which the students were seated according to their county clubs.
The Texas State Historian lives in Sherman. He told me last fall, the news I reported could have easily happened there as it did here in Hunt County. Sometimes the news is tragic, sometimes humorous, but usually very interesting.