This newspaper office recently received a few copies of newspapers published in 1913. Apparently the contributors found the papers rolled into a bundle and stashed away in a house they were cleaning. I’m sorry I don’t know where the papers were found.
I’ve looked at the front pages trying to determine why they were saved.
The collection includes the Sept. 14 and Nov. 27, 1913, issues of the Sunday State Journal published in Lincoln, Neb., the Dec. 4, 1913, and June 24, 1948, issues of The Superior Express, and copies of the Superior Morning Journal from Nov. 23, Nov. 27, Nov. 29, Dec. 4, and Dec. 13, 1913.
In 1913, both The Journal and The Express were published as daily newspapers. The Express featured local news on the front page while The Journal featured national and international news. Though The Journal was established about 20 years before The Express, by 1913 The Express had been designated as the official newspaper for Nuckolls County.
The Dec. 13 issue of The Journal was published in tabloid format, all the others were broadsheets. (Terms used by the newspaper trade to describe the size of a page. The tabloid page was 13 x 18 and the broadsheet 24 x 35.)
War in Mexico and hostilities along the southern United States border made the big national news.
The Dec. 4 issue reported, “Behind the double bulkheads, the Utah Apex mine still holds the secret tonight of whether Ralph Lopez, the bandit and slayer of six men, is alive or dead. The smudges ignited Monday (this was published on Thursday) continued to pour their deadly fumes into the mine, poisoning the air. Searching parties will enter mine tomorrow (Friday) to look for the body of Lopez.
On Nov, 23 is was reported Miss Evelyn Brodstone and Mrs. A. C. Felt returned home last evening from Lincoln, where they had been attending the Nebraska-Iowa football game. Nebraska had shutout Iowa with a score of 12-0.
Earl Cooper, winner of several auto trophies in the coast country, while testing his car for entry in the races at San Jose, Calif, met with a serious accident. While going at a speed of 70 miles an hour, a rear tire blew out and it was necessary to run the car into the fence to avoid something more serious. Cooper was badly hurt.
The paper reported the Nelson boys basketball team was coming to Superior the next evening to contest with the Superior High School boys in a game at the Gymnasium beginning at 8 o’clock.
The teams were said to be evenly matched and a good game was expected. Readers were encouraged to “Go and help the athletic association and boost for the home boys. Admission 25 cents.”
What the Journal called the gymnasium was most likely the room in which I took woodworking classes under the tutelage of Gene Bruening. It was a long room in the basement of the high school building located on Tenth Street. The late Earl Cowger told me about the years the room served as the school’s gym. When the junior high was built, the gym was moved to the second floor of that building. When I attended the Superior schools, the students were bused downtown to the City Auditorium for gym classes. A big portion of the class period was devoted to moving the students the six blocks between the school and the auditorium.
The paper didn’t elaborate but I wonder how the visiting team traveled between Nelson and Superior for an 8 p.m. game. The connecting road was primitive by today’s standards and so were the automobiles and particularly their lighting systems. Do you suppose the Burlington railroad ran a special train between the two communities?
When my father played football for Superior High School about 25 years later, the Missouri Pacific ran a special train to transport the team and fans between the two communities and those games were played in the afternoon as the fields were not yet lighted for night games.
We have a book for sale at The Express titled “Remembering Stanley” which includes a story about Harold Dwyer coaching a girls basketball team and a victorious team making a late night trip home.
The Nov. 29, issue of the Morning Journal devoted more than an entire column to reporting on the death of “Uncle David Croft.”
He was born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1829 and at 81 years of age was thought to be Nebraska’s oldest living member of the Odd Fellows Lodge. A Civil War veteran, he was a blacksmith by trade. The large three link emblem that hung over the Noble Grand’s station in the “new” lodge hall was carved by him from a solid piece of wood. It was highly prized by the local lodge.
A picture published with the obituary was taken by Dr. Wait and included a chair the deceased had made of wild animal horns and cedar salvaged from the Galveston flood.
The 1948 Express includes a story about the flooding Republican River. Heavy rains in the McCook and Cambridge areas alarmed residents here and brought back memories of the 1947 flood. However, in 1948 the river here held the water with only some “slopping over.”
To the west a number of roads were closed because of washed out bridges. The flooding Medicine Creek washed out a half-mile of Burlington railroad track near Cambridge and about 1,000 feet of track was washed out near the depot at Indianola.
Burlington trains were being routed over the Union Pacific from Brush Colorado, to Hastings. Trains 14 and 15, running between Table Rock and McCook, were turning around at Red Cloud.
An even more tragic story reported a transient scissors grinder identified as Carol Voss of Columbus. He was decapitated in the Burlington railroad yard. He apparently had wrapped himself in a quilt he was carrying and gone to sleep under a box car. He had arrived in Superior earlier in the week on Passenger Train No. 14. He had boarded the train at Red Cloud. He apparently was asleep when the car was switched.
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