The Daily Times

One of our readers visited the office this week and left a unique relic from the past: a newspaper published on Monday, Oct. 27, 1930. It’s The Maryville Times, “an ideal newspaper, a newspaper of ideals,” published semi-weekly, Monday and Thursday.

On the front page, the headline for the main story is “To Make Drive For Sanatorium,” (yes, that’s how it was spelled), with the subhead “Work The Institution Has Done In The Past.” The story was an open letter to the people of Blount County written by A.D. Huddleston, chairman, Operating Committee, of the Mountain View Sanitorium on Hall Road in Alcoa. The sanitorium was a hospital serving children with “the white plague,” tuberculosis. “A person in Blount County was dying on the average of every ten days” from the disease, Huddleston wrote.

In the letter, Huddleston announces a drive for funds for the sanitorium to take place Nov. 3 through 8. Why the fundraiser? Because, as he stated, “I do not believe for a minute that the people of Blount county will turn their backs on these 15 little children now in the institution and upon those who need hospital treatment at this time and will enter later.”

In other news of that day, “Big Crowd at Eusebia Stone Laying” was prominently displayed. The crowd gathered to lay the cornerstone of the fourth building of the church, which had been organized 144 years before. A cornerstone box was placed and included a number of mementos related to the church and that particular time in history — a copy of the Eusebia Herald (the parish paper), the Westminster Leader and Presbyterian Advance; a copy of the Maryville Times, the Maryville Enterprise (a second newspaper serving Blount County at that time) and clippings from “the Knoxville papers;” a roll of the church members and officers; historical information about the church; a list of Civil War veterans buried in the cemetery in the handwriting of Maj. Will A. McTeer; a Holy Bible; and other items.

Other front-page headlines announced that “Joe C. Gamble States Platform.” Gamble, a Maryville attorney, “was nominated in the August Primary as the Republican candidate for Direct Representative to the State Legislature from Blount County.” Gamble said he was opposed to the “old, out-of-date, and obsolete system which requires all men between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five, or any other age, to work five days upon the public highways of the county ...”

J.C. McCampbell, who had served as a sheriff, also announced his candidacy for the state legislature, running as an independent. His chief concern was to “abolish the present road commission which is costing the county nearly $5,000 per year in salaries ...”

In other front page news: the Home Demonstration Club planned to meet Oct. 30; Walland High School was commencing construction of a new gymnasium which would have “showers and lockers;” Friendsville Academy was having a masquerade social Oct. 31; a new lady’s shop called The Fashion, owned and operated by Mrs. O.K. Spears, was to open Tuesday morning in the Patton Building; the Rev. C.L. Kirby’s funeral was announced for Tuesday; and “The stores of Maryville will close each day at 5:30 o’clock beginning today, excepting grocery stores, which will close at 6 o’clock.”

On the second page of the eight-page newspaper, an ad caught my eye. Written in the style of a news story, the headline was “Wife, Gas, Scare Man in Dead of Night,” and the testimonial for a product called Adlerika is as follows: “‘Overcome by stomach gas in the dead of night, I scared my husband badly. He got Adlerika an(d) it ended the gas.’ — Mrs. M. Owen.” The ad continues, “Adlerika relieves stomach gas in TEN minutes! Acts on BOTH upper and lower bowel, removing old poisonous waste you never knew was there. Don’t fool with medicine which cleans only PART of bowels, but let Adlerika give stomach and bowels a REAL cleaning and get rid of all gas.” The medicine was offered at Byrne Drug Co.

Linda Albert is Sunday Life editor and a staff writer for The Daily Times. You may contact her at 981-1168 or (linda.albert@thedailytimes.com)

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