New Year, New Newspapers!

The library is excited to share the news of a new resource for our genealogists!  The library now has a subscription to Newspapers.com, a subsidiary of Ancestry.com.  Even better, it's available to patrons at home with their library card just like HeritageQuest!

Newspapers.com provides access to select digitized Missouri newspapers with advanced settings that allow you to search by keyword, date, and location.

Butler County digitized newspapers include:

• Weekly Citizen Democrat (7,000+ pages,1908–1938)
• Poplar Bluff Republican (11,000+ pages, 1915–1945)
• Poplar Bluff Citizen (5,900+ pages, 1878–1908) 
• The Evening Citizen (494 pages, 1905–1907)

For these newspapers, gone are the days of squinting to make out words and feeling woozy after spending hours watching as frame after frame scroll across the screen!  This is just one example of the way the library provides services to our patrons outside of "normal" business hours in the comfort of your own home.

To use this wonderful new resource, you MUST access it through our website by going to our Genealogy Page by using this link https://poplarbluff.org/genealogy.html and scrolling down to the Newspapers.com section.  Use the link in that section and you will be asked for your library card number.  You will then be directed to the library's subscription.  (Attempting to go direct to the website will ask you to sign up and pay, that's why you must use the link we provide.)

Happy researching!!

Four new collections from Caruthersville Public Library

Four new collections from Caruthersville Public Library, in partnership with the State Historical  Society of Missouri, is now available, thanks to a recent Digital Imaging Grant. The Caruthersville Democrat/Democrat-Argus, Southeast Scimitar/Pemiscot Press, Hayti Critic and Hayti Pemiscot Argus served as major sources of information and news to the Pemiscot County community. The collections contain newspapers published from 1892 through 1965. (This project was supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Missouri State Library.)

Explore more Missouri history collections at http://www.MissouriDigitalHeritage.com.

Following in their footsteps - Brick Streets of PB

Click photograph to see full size.

You may not be able to walk a mile in your ancestor's shoes, however, you can walk the same routes and cross intersections made of bricks in downtown Poplar Bluff just as they did a century ago.

The Butler County Historical Society has a wonderfully informative page on their website chronicling the decisions and progress of building the now historic brick streets.  Articles from the Daily American Republic, along with stories from residents, provide the historical context of the times.

The plaque above, located at the corner of Oak Street and Main Street on the grounds of the library, was presented by the Poplar Bluff Rotary Club to the Poplar Bluff Historical Commission in 1990.

If you're interested in learning about the brick streets in greater detail, the articles cited on the Butler County Historical Society's website are available to be viewed in their entirety on microfilm at the library.

Historic Newspaper Research Available Via Google News

It has been brought to my attention that Google News offers images of historic newspapers though their News Archive Search.  The "About" section offers the following information:

About News Archive Search

"News Archive Search provides an easy way to search and explore historical archives. Users can search for events, people or ideas and see how they have been described over time.

Search results include content from a number of sources, including both partner content digitized by Google through our News Archives Partner Program and online archival materials that we've crawled. Search results can include content that is freely accessible as well as content that requires a fee. You can either browse through the full collection of papers scanned or use Advanced News Search to specify the date range in which you'd like to search the archives."

The closest newspapers in proximity to Poplar Bluff that I could locate are three published in Cape Girardeau:

• The Daily Republican (1,169 issues covering April 1, 1908 - February 28, 1918)
• Cape Girardeau Bulletin (232 issues covering December 28, 1967 - Oct 14, 1976) 
• Southeast Missourian (22,937 issues covering November 17, 1901 - December 31, 2007) This paper is still in production and issues since September 2001 are available on their website.

The oldest newspaper I've managed to locate so far has been an issue of the St. John's Gazette from September 12, 1788!  Another paper I browsed, The Centinel dated November 27, 1805, provides contemporary reports of the state of affairs in France regarding Napoleon Bonaparte.

Resources such as these will provide you with day-to-day historical context (locally and globally) in which to place your ancestor's life.

Happy reading and good luck with your research!

85th Anniversary of Devastating Tornado

This afternoon, four score and five years ago, a tornado wrought destruction and death to the city of Poplar Bluff.  This will be remembered and marked by a few but go unnoticed by most.  May 9, 1927, may have left the community in pieces that day but life went on.

Two days later, "The Daily Republican", published a double-sided, one page edition with the banner headline "Poplar Bluff Will Rebuild".  One column contains a list the deceased.  Over 100 died that day.  As I delved further into my own genealogy research, that list became very personal after finding a death certificate for my great-great grandfather.  I had never read the list, just glanced over it. Looking back, sure enough, there he was: J.W. (John Wesley) Huson, my great-great grandfather.  The death certificate was submitted by D.B. Deem, Justice of the Peace, Acting Coroner (author of Deem's History of Butler County).

I have yet to discover where he was precisely.  His occupation was always listed as being a farmer but double checking the 1920 Census and following up with his widow in the 1930 Census, street addresses for Poplar Bluff were listed on the far left columns of both.  So many of my ancestors were farmers and always listed as "rural", "county road", or "country road", I'd become blind to the street address portion of the Census.

I definitely learned my lesson.  Even if you think you're familiar with a record, it's never a bad idea to take another look. You may find a new clue that leads you to additional information.  If nothing else, you'll be confirming what you already knew.

You can see the resulting devastation in a series of photographs, including a scanned image of the first post-storm edition of "The Daily Republican" published on May 11th, on the library's website.

Newspaper Research @ the Library

The library maintains the local Poplar Bluff newspaper on microfilm dating back to as early as 1877. This collection is not conclusive, particularly in the earliest editions.

By visiting the library and using the microfilm machine, copies may be printed for 25 cents per page or even emailed to yourself.  A library card or visitor pass is needed to use the microfilm machine for up to 2 hours.  (A visitor pass is available for $1.00 with an ID.)

If you live too far away to visit the library, the library does provide a research and copy service of articles/obituaries from the local newspaper for a fee of $5.00 per incident. However, an index for this material does not currently exist. For this reason, library staff are limited to searching only those requests, which contain the exact name of the individual involved and the exact date of the incident. To request a copy of a local newspaper article/obituary, please send a written request containing the above information, the $5.00 fee, and a SASE to:

POPLAR BLUFF PUBLIC LIBRARY

ATTN:  GENEALOGY/REFERENCE
318 NORTH MAIN STREET
POPLAR BLUFF MO 63901

The results of the search will then be returned in the envelope provided, or emailed, if requested. If you have any additional questions on newspaper services, please contact the library at 573-686-8639 or by email.