The Comet (Johnson City, Tenn.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,552 issues from 1884 to 1916, published in Johnson City, Tennessee, digitised for Chronicling America.
On March 15, 1884, Nathaniel C.T. Love published the first issue of the Comet in Johnson City, Tennessee. Attorneys Robert Burrow and Robert L. Taylor (later governor of Tennessee) served as the newspaper’s editors. The paper’s salutatory piece affirmed its perspective: “In politics, we are democratic; in religion, we are orthodox.” At the time of the Comet’s first issue, the town had just one other newspaper, the politically independent Enterprise, established the previous year.
By July 1884, editorial control at the Comet had passed to Taylor and C.J. St. John, Jr. Little under a year later, the announcement was made the Cyrus “Cy” H. Lyle and Robert Burrow had purchased the paper but Taylor would remain as editor. The Comet covered political issues and local affairs and offered entertaining short stories and poems. In a town served by two railroad lines (later three), the paper unsurprisingly devoted much column space to train schedules and railroad news. On political issues, Taylor’s staunch support of the Democratic Party and his strong political ideology were clearly apparent. In the October issue before the 1884 presidential election, the Comet, which supported Grover Cleveland for president, featured a front-page story that included a sketched portrait of Taylor. The article complimented Taylor’s speech condemning the Republican Party and sang his praises as a presidential elector. Taylor later ran for governor of Tennessee against his brother, Republican Alfred A.…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Johnson City, Tennessee, 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