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Chronicling America
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Newspaper The Adair County News (Columbia, Ky.) 1897-1987

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About The Adair County News (Columbia, Ky.) 1897-1987

The Adair County News covered south-central Kentucky’s eastern Pennyrile region, but its appeal extended beyond the small county seat of Columbia. In 1909, subscriptions included advertisements for businesses in Columbia and nearby towns, including Lebanon, Russell Springs, Greensburg, and Jamestown. Charles S. Harris established the Adair County News in 1887 as a Democratic counter to Alvin A. Strange’s Republican Columbia Spectator, with hopes, according to the first issue, that it would be a true Democratic paper, come to advocate honest convictions and defend noble principles.

Turn-of-the-century Columbia was an isolated community. In 1910, local farmers and businessmen still traveled almost 20 miles to Campbellsville, Kentucky to receive goods or ship their products on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Unsurprisingly, the prospect of a railroad connection to Columbia was newsworthy, although it was a prospect that never materialized. The Adair County News included reports of Columbia and Louisville agricultural markets, social news, and correspondence from nearby towns. (A Gradyville, Kentucky, correspondent declared in the paper’s first issue: The election excitement has quieted and everybody has gone to business.) Adair County News also chronicled pivotal events in Columbia’s history, including the founding of the Lindsey Wilson Training School in 1903, later to become Lindsey Wilson College. In 1919, Judge Rollin T. Hurt, writing under the pseudonym John Avroe Steel, began a lengthy series of columns on Adair County’s early history.

While Charles Harris handled the paper’s finances, John Edward Murrell (1849-1926) was its voice for many years. Murrell had worked for several weekly community newspapers, including the Columbia Spectator, before joining Harris to found the News. Murrell proudly presented original content, providing editorial and news notes for each issue during his tenure at the paper. Murrell also frequently commented on national events, and he was a caustic critic of President Theodore Roosevelt’s appointment of African Americans to federal positions in the South or of any other challenge to the prevailing racial order.

In 1917, Harris sold the Adair County News to Barksdale Hamlett, who had served as Kentucky’s superintendent of public instruction from 1912 to 1916. Daisy Hamlett would become publisher after her husband’s death in 1919. In 1926, her son, Edward, succeeded Murrell as the paper’s editor. Mary L. Smith, known affectionately as Mamie, who had begun her career with the paper in 1909, worked alongside Edward Hamlett as compositor, bookkeeper, and office manager until her death in 1954. Mamie Smith also contributed to the paper’s personal notes and local coverage. The Adair County News, the county’s most durable newspaper, continued until 1987, when in the span of four successive years it was replaced by a number of other weeklies, including the Columbia-Adair County News-Statesman, the Adair County News-Statesman, the Columbia Newsweek, and the Columbia News.

Provided By: University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Adair County News (Columbia, Ky.) 1897-1987

Dates of Publication

  • 1897-1987

Created / Published

  • Columbia, Ky. : Chas. S. Harris, 1897-1987.

Headings

  • -  Adair County (Ky.)--Newspapers
  • -  Columbia (Ky.)--Newspapers
  • -  Kentucky--Adair County
  • -  Kentucky--Columbia
  • -  United States--Kentucky--Adair--Columbia

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly, -Aug. 10, 1987
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (Nov. 3, 1897)-v. 70, no. 41 (Aug. 10, 1987).
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Columbia statesman (Columbia, Ky. : 1986) 0890-894X (DLC)sn 86069549 (OCoLC)14208057
  • -  Columbia-Adair County news-statesman 0896-3355 (DLC)sn 87060313 (OCoLC)16617850

Medium

  • volumes : illustrations

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn86069496

OCLC Number

  • 14196349

ISSN Number

  • 1940-7432

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

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. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Adair County News Columbia, Ky. -1987. (Columbia, KY), Jan. 1 1897. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn86069496/.

APA citation style:

(1897, January 1) The Adair County News Columbia, Ky. -1987. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn86069496/.

MLA citation style:

The Adair County News Columbia, Ky. -1987. (Columbia, KY) 1 Jan. 1897. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn86069496/.