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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper River Junction Tribune (River Junction, Gadsden County, Fla.) 19??-1941

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About River Junction Tribune (River Junction, Gadsden County, Fla.) 19??-1941

The River Junction Tribune, later the Chattahoochee Tribune, was a weekly paper published in Gadsden County, Florida, beginning circa 1929. The newspaper changed its name to the Chattahoochee Tribune in July 1941, after the town of River Junction was formally combined with Chattahoochee and residents voted to call the entire incorporated area Chattahoochee.

In 1930 the River Junction Tribune was published by editor Frank Webb and the Chattahoochee Publishing Company, described as a Democratic paper in N.W. Ayer & Son’s American Newspaper Annual and Directory. From 1935 to 1940 the Tribune was published by Quincy Publishing Company and edited by Charles Spurgeon Dunn. Dunn’s wife, Eunice B. Dunn, edited the recurring “Women’s Page” and society news. From 1940 to 1941 both the Quincy Publishing Company and C.C. Nicolet were listed as publishers, with LaMar Watts as resident editor.

The four- to eight-page weekly paper regularly covered local topics, including club, church, and social news, as well as crime and agricultural news from Gadsden County and, occasionally, major news from surrounding communities, including Leon County and parts of southern Georgia. The River Junction Tribune and the Chattahoochee Tribune also covered local and state politics and legislation, including amendments to the town charter for River Junction’s name change to Chattahoochee. The paper leaned Southern Democrat, with coverage and endorsements of Southern Democratic political candidates. In 1936, the layout changed from six to seven columns, and the paper began carrying more syndicated content, including comics, photojournalism, movie reviews, and serialized fiction.

The Tribune provided consistent and significant coverage of shade tobacco farming, one of the most lucrative industries in Gadsden County and a critical piece of the state and national tobacco industry. The paper also regularly reported on Chattahoochee’s largest employer, the State Mental Hospital, which was the first and, until 1947, only such institution in Florida. Another topic heavily covered was the management of the Apalachicola River, including New Deal projects such as the Apalachicola River Bridge and various initiatives to dam the river.

Gadsden County, located in the Florida Panhandle along the Florida/Georgia border northwest of Tallahassee, is notable for its historical importance in the shade tobacco industry, its African American majority population, and the impact of Coca-Cola. It has historically been and, as of 2022, remained the only county in Florida with a majority African American population. The River Junction Tribune and Chattahoochee Tribune provided news items on the Black community, especially in relation to the shade tobacco and other agricultural industries, although the surviving content does not feature news written by or explicitly directed to the Black community. The county seat, Quincy, was once the wealthiest small town in the United States per capita thanks to the so-called “Coca-Cola Millionaires”—townspeople, mostly white, who invested in Coca-Cola during the Great Depression at the urging of Quincy State Bank President Mark W. “Pat” Munroe.

In 1942, LaMar Watts, editor of the Chattahoochee Tribune and Chattahoochee correspondent for the Gadsden County Times, was drafted due to World War II. At the time, both papers were published by the Quincy Publishing Company. Watts never returned to either paper, and in 1951 or 1952 the nameplate of the Gadsden County Times changed to “The Gadsden County Times and Continuing the Chattahoochee Tribune.”

Provided By: University of Florida

About this Newspaper

Title

  • River Junction Tribune (River Junction, Gadsden County, Fla.) 19??-1941

Dates of Publication

  • 19??-1941

Created / Published

  • River Junction, Gadsden County, Fla. : C.S. Dunn, -1941.

Headings

  • -  River Junction (Fla.)--Newspapers
  • -  Chattahoochee (Fla.)--Newspapers
  • -  Gadsden County (Fla.)--Newspapers
  • -  Florida--Chattahoochee
  • -  Florida--Gadsden County
  • -  Florida--River Junction
  • -  United States--Florida--Gadsden--Chattahoochee
  • -  United States--Florida--Gadsden--River Junction

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  -v. 10, no. 9 (July 4, 1941).
  • -  Published at: River Junction, Fla., <1935-1937>; and at: Chattahoochee, Fla., <1940>-1941.
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 7, no. 1 (Oct. 25, 1935).
  • -  Chattahoochee tribune (DLC)sn 95047262 (OCoLC)33426449

Medium

  • v.

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn95047261

OCLC Number

  • 33426448

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:

River Junction Tribune River Junction, Gadsden County, Fla. 19??. (Chattahoochee, FL), 19??. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn95047261/.

APA citation style:

(19??) River Junction Tribune River Junction, Gadsden County, Fla. 19??. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn95047261/.

MLA citation style:

River Junction Tribune River Junction, Gadsden County, Fla. 19??. (Chattahoochee, FL) 19??. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn95047261/.