The threat of typhoid fever, the possibility of a railroad through north Georgia and ample advertising of medicinal tonics.
These are some of the historical nuggets that can be found in Gilmer County newspapers of yesteryear — some more than a century old — now available for free online viewing.
These old editions were recently made available online by the Georgia Public Library Service (GPLS) and the Digital Library of Georgia.
More than 53,000 pages of Georgia newspapers from 1877-1967 were included in the recent addition to the Georgia Historic Newspapers website (gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu).
Master microfilm sources at the University of Georgia Library in Athens were used to bring the old newspaper content online. The newly digitized Gilmer newspapers, which date from 1875-1924, include issues of the Times-Courier, as well as its predecessors the Ellijay Courier, Ellijay Times and Courier-Sentinel.
There are no complete yearly runs of any of the Gilmer publications, but, given the scarcity of local periodicals from this era, the 300-plus editions that have been digitized will provide a lasting resource for researchers and curious readers.
Alex Thomerson, Gilmer County Library manager, said the local public library has archives of Gilmer’s newspapers available to view on microfilm, but these digitized editions can be accessed through the GALILEO (Georgia Library Learning Online) digital library service wherever internet access is available.
“This is a major addition to GALILEO, and we’re excited that patrons can now access these older editions and search from home. We’re very grateful to GPLS for funding the project,” he added.
Thomerson said the local library’s microfilm records of Gilmer newspapers run from Feb. 16, 1876-March 26, 2009.
“We also store archived paper copies (of the Times-Courier) from June 2009-Dec. 2021. We keep whatever is more recent than that at our public periodicals shelf,” he added.
Barbara Dover, a Gilmer library patron and member of the Gilmer Genealogical Society, said she and many others have spent countless hours at the library researching those back issues on microfilm to find information about their ancestors.
“Even finding out what was going on in their piece of the world at certain points of their lives has often provided blossoms and leaves to the branches of our family trees,” she said.
Having free access to digitized editions of the old newspapers now makes it possible to do some of that genealogical research from home, Dover noted.
“This is one of the many varied ways that our library serves as an integral part of our community,” she said.
Other Georgia counties with publications recently added to the historic newspaper website include Glynn, Mitchell, Newton and White.
Digitization of newspaper content from Georgia’s rural, agricultural and unrepresented geographic areas remains a top priority of the historic newspaper database project led by the Digital Library of Georgia, according to a press release from the Sequoyah Regional Library System.