Watauga Democrat (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) 1888-Current
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
2,339 issues from 1888 to 1934, published in Boone, North Carolina, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Watauga Democrat, based in Boone, North Carolina, originated in July 1888 as a megaphone for the Democratic Party of Watauga County. The founder and editor was Joseph F. Spainhour (1850-1939) who, in the first issues, also offered his services as an attorney. The initial publisher was John Syme Williams (1862-1932). The four-page, six-column paper appeared weekly and, in a style typical of the partisan press of the day, the owners praised their party’s candidates and demonized their opponents. The Democrat‘s rival Republican paper was the Watauga Enterprise, established by Leonidas Leander Greene (1845-1898) and Thomas Edgar Bingham (1845-1917) in Boone earlier in 1888. It folded after the success of Republican presidential candidate Benjamin Harrison at the polls that fall.
Spainhour acquired a handpress known as a “Washington Press” manufactured by R. Hoe and Company of New York. Made of black cast iron with silver springs and a pressure arm assembly, the contraption incorporated a wood frame and a marble table to hold and print one page at a time. It required two teams of horses to transport from the railroad station in Lenoir, North Carolina, to Watauga County. In use until 1913, the press today is in the collections of the North Carolina Museum of History.
Spainhour sold theDemocrat in 1889 to Daniel Baker Dougherty (1833-1902) and Robert Campbell Rivers (1862-1933). Campbell served as publisher and Dougherty as editor. A man with little formal education,…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Boone, North Carolina, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress