Corner Column

By Phil Major
publisher@wood.cm
Posted 8/18/22

What you are reading is history in the making, also known as the first draft.

We were reminded of that in a big way recently when a reproduction of the 1950 Wood County centennial edition of the …

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Corner Column

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What you are reading is history in the making, also known as the first draft.

We were reminded of that in a big way recently when a reproduction of the 1950 Wood County centennial edition of the Wood County Democrat from July 27, 1950 made its way to our office.

It’s 120 pages chock-ful of information about Wood County’s first 100 years. It even claimed to be the largest edition of a weekly newspaper in the country.

We are grateful to have the copy, made from the original that has been preserved all these 72 years. The oldest copies of the Democrat we have on hand fall just a bit short of that, in 1951, so this is a treasure.

For the Mineola Monitor we can go back only to 1993 continuously, and then to 1969 with mostly large gaps.

For instance, we are not able to read about the city’s centennial celebration from 1973.

I have no idea why the printed newspapers weren’t better preserved, but it truly makes me sad.

Before things went digital, it was the printed word that served as the best resource for history.

I remember going into the magazine archives of the library at what’s now the University of North Texas to research a paper in high school. I wonder if those volumes are still around 50 years later? I assume, given the fantastic work the university has done to preserve Texas history, that they are, or at least a digital replica.

The sensation of that musty smell after cracking open the first-hand accounts from the Korean War is something I’ll not soon forget. (For reference, that war was only 20 years ago at the time.)

I know the local libraries and others have worked with the university to help preserve some of our local history.

In a couple recent examples of the importance of preserving the old papers, two readers came in looking for family obituaries from the last 20 or 30 years. Each was able to find what they were looking for, including one that was recent enough it should have appeared on the funeral home website, but for whatever reason, it was no longer there. Just gone, lost to history, perhaps during a website upgrade.

They were grateful to find it in print, and it served to show that while great strides have been made in digital technology, it can be vulnerable to loss – much the same as some printed copies of this paper have been lost to history.

Many of the local papers have been preserved on microfilm and online through the university’s program. But there are significant gaps there as well.

Frankly we need to find the time to get more familiar with what is, and is not preserved in various locations.

Fortunately there are many in the community who have a passion for this, so through perseverance perhaps parts of that history can be reclaimed.

Many thanks to Jeanne at BoxCar Ship-N-Print for her diligence on this project along with the Wood County Historical Commission.

To conclude, a wiser man has said that in order to know where you’re going, it’s helpful to know where you’ve been. That’s why history matters.