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Rediscover Mt. Vernon and Lisbon online
By Jake Krob
The Sun – Mt. Vernon, Iowa
November 3, 2005
How could you beat it? When SmallTownPapers called a few months ago, asking
if we'd like to put our newspaper archives online, for
free, we jumped at the chance.
And now you can view these old editions.
At www.smalltownpapers.com, old editions of the Sun (including recently
published 1995 editions) and the former Hawkeye-Record are viewable page by
page. They're browsable...and searchable.
To start, we shipped the web company bound volumes of the local paper from
1993, 1938, 1957 and 2004. This past week, we packed up the following bound
volumes to be digitized for web- site viewing: 1898; Oct. 31, 1940, to Oct.
23, 1941; 1972; 1986 and 1996. Finally, SmallTownPapers is on our
subscription list and about a week after the paper hits the streets, it's
viewable in true form on the website.
To get the most out of the service's use, it's best to become a registered
user. Free registration allows access to a load of material.
The basics of how the site works: Once at smalltownpapers.com, click on
"searchable archives," choose "Iowa," then our newspaper. If you click on
"current edition," you'll view pages of a two-week-old edition that have
been scanned in. Click "archived editions" and you'll be able to choose a
specific newspaper
publication date to view that edition.
I used the archived edition and quickly found historic local news.
On Page 1 of the Nov. 3, 1938, edition was a prominent story of the death of
Fred A. Bauman, "senior member of EA. Bauman & Company," our men's clothing
store that still sees success today. Interestingly, I learned that Mr.
Bauman grew up in the newspaper business and for 10 years worked with his
brother at the Hawkeye-Record. Fred sold his newspaper interest to his
brother to start the clothing store.
From March 14, 1957: Darrell Morningstar, Sailor Phelps and Don Bowers were
elected to the Lisbon Consolidated School Board. Also in Lisbon, city
council members were planning to read water meters on Saturday.
On the left-side rail of the site, you can also click on "try a free
search," pick The Sun - Mount Vernon or The Hawkeye Record, and use key
words to find something. I tried "enrollment" and got a number of hits,
including a Dec. 29, 1938, year-in-review piece that noted Mount Vernon
schools opened the school year with 317 students. Key word matches are
highlighted in yellow on the paper's page, so they're easy to find.
Certainly the site serves our own staff's needs. With the digitized
editions, we're able to quickly pull up old stories for background on a
current piece. It saves time, for sure, and allows our bound copies to
remain untouched.
It should be a great asset for other researchers, too.
We regularly receive phone calls and walk-in requests to view old editions.
Many seek genealogical information. Others are trying to find details of
past projects in our communities that might tie into today's
projects.
Although every edition of the Sun and Hawkeye-Record is not yet on the
website, it's a start.
I invite you to check it out and dig into the history of our towns by
electronically paging through editions of your local newspaper.
Jake Krob can be contacted at
news@mtvernonlisbonsun.com
or 319-895-6216.
Copyright
The Sun 2005. Used with permission.
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