1903-Earliest Edition of Original Newspaper In Malden

Head Mast of The Dunklin News

All information for this blog is collected from the microfilm reader at the Malden Historical Museum. The original paper is located in the vaults of the Delta News Citizen in Malden. Thanks for reading the Maldenite blog.

The Dunklin County News. It was a Democratic paper. Established in 1886 and the Dunklin Country Register, established in the late circa 1800s. (It is impossible to tell from the microfilm the exact date of the Dunklin County Register.) To a history buff, these microfilmed pages rolling in front of the viewer are a treasure for anyone that love's to read about Malden's earliest history.

Daniel J. Keller was the editor and publisher of the Dunklin County News in 1903. The paper was located at l08 East Main Street. The banner in publisher's corner reads, "Published Regularly Every Friday Morning, by the Malden Printing Company. Telephone 116. Subscription was $1.00 a year. Ten cents a month and reads "invariably in advance." One could buy the weekly paper for 5 cents on Friday and a sample copy free upon request.

Reprinted from the "Caruthersville Democrat. "On December 23, the county court of Pemiscot, sold 12,000 acres of land lying along the Little River and composing Flag Lake, it was sold to a syndicate of capitalist represented by Otto Kochitzky.

The buyers of this land intend to secure drainage and make that great body of swamp land fit for cultivation."

An article elaborated on the land owners in Dunklin County that were holding on to their properties speculating that adjacent land owners would improve their property and consequently drain their land without any investments on their part.

A call for a drainage district to control speculators for land holdings reasoned, that other counties were rapidly forging ahead of Dunklin County in the matter of population and taxable wealth because the people have seriously taken up the drainage question and at work digging the ditches for drainage."

Perhaps a reader of the Dunklin County News might have glanced at the following page in that edition and read about that the Opera House was open New Year's night for FREE. At the Malden Opera A "Quaker Concert Co." was headlined as "The biggest and best show of the season.

Fun for all. See the great "Quaker Doctors" every day from 10 to 12 until next Thursday. A visit with the "Quaker Doctors" is worth money to you. Regretfully, there is not a review of the "Quaker Doctors" and their performance.

Early businesses in Malden seem to always fascinate any history buff of Malden. Coble's Shoe Store were selling women "Queen Quality Comfort" shoes for $3.50. Their slogan, "Sole Right of Sale for Malden" was below the store name. Catchy phrase for Coble's Shoe Store.

After the opera, a Maldenite could stroll down to "The Wind Saloon, where 'the finest bowling alley in the state of connection,' was advertised. The Wind Rye whisky was the established drink.

If this was not to your liking, one could walk to Tim Barham's Annex Saloon where one could drink from Barham's private 12 year old stock. This stock was from fossil fuel and is pungent and very palatable.

While sipping Barnham's private stock, one could read the schedule of trains on the Cotton Belt Route. Station listings were from Chicago, St. Louis, Cairo, Malden, Paragould, Jonesboro and beyond. One could catch a train in Malden and travel to Dallas, Texas for a visit with friends and relatives.

The next morning Maldenites could shop at the Allen Store Co. for a Chattanooga-Hancock Disc Plow. Built for three or four horses the double disc plow had a lighter draft than other disc plows. "Turns corners either right or left. It had a low steel frame and weight was 725. A carload on had; call and see them."

Later on that year, the headline carries this story, "The 'Drys' Win" Majority of 940 for No License. The result of Saturday's election was a decisive victory for the local option cause in Dunklin County and it is said that the majority by which was carried, will have upon other counties of the Southeast section of the state, which are contemplating the adoption of local option will be great.

The article went on to read, "Three months ago it was not thought possible to carry Dunklin County for location option but the thorough organization of the temperance advocates and the vigorous campaign made by the speakers for the cause had its effect in almost every home in the county.

Every minister in the county volunteered his services for the cause and went from place to place and held meetings and told the voters that the only way to save the boys from being drunkards was to vote whisky out of their reach.

Judge Fort lent powerful and to the cause by his firm stand, expressed in letters to friends in the county, that if local option carried, he would use every means in his power to prevent "boot legging" or "blind tigers" from doing business in the county.

The knowledge of this position taken by the circuit judge and the belief by the majority of the voters that the officers of the county would do their duty in their efforts to suppress the unlawful traffic in whiskey, gave the people confidence, and that was what they needed.

Not one township in the county went wet, and only one town, and that Kennett, which had a majority of 41 for saloons.

Another first in the year 1903, was the year the Bank of Malden was declared "New Bank" with a capital stock of $15,000 Fair treatment guaranteed. Officers for the new bank were A. L. Stokes, President; Geo. Dalton, Vice-president; M. B. Rayburn, Cashier. Directors: L. K. Ashcraft, Geo. Dalton, C. H. Mason, J. H. McRee, Virgil McKay, T. R. R. Ely, R. H. Jones and A. L. Stokes.

Another banking institution advertising just below the news of the Bank of Malden was Dunklin County Bank with deposit that amounted to $100,557.46. Officers and directors were: M. Wofford, T. C. Stokes, G. W. Peck, W. J. Davis and C. S. Marsh. "Oldest bank in the county."

A headline out of Washington announced that President Roosevelt started west on his hunting trip last Wednesday. The train was made up of six of the most elaborate coaches ever turned out by the Pullman Company. The usual routine of reports and photographers will help to fill up these magnificent coaches.

In the meantime volumes of have been written about Malden as an industrial center. Situated as it is on a high prairie where health abounds, and surrounded on all sides by miles of fertile farm lands and unlimited quantities of the finest oak, cypress, gum and hickory timber standing in the virgin forests untouched by woodman's axe. Malden is considered by lumbermen as a splendid location for sawmills, with its pure water, good railroad facilities of two trunk lines, and quick market for all refuse and cull lumber and wood.

Malden has always carried off the palm as the cotton market in this part of the country, moreover one of the greatest, if not the greatest melon shipping points in the world.

A big disappointment came that year when a new sawmill looking at locating in Malden chose to build the mill north of Malden. The city was in shock and disappointment when the new mill did not located in the heart of the Malden. Looks like 1903 and 2010 have a lot in common.

Thanks for taking time to read this blog about Malden's history. More will follow at least once a month. I apologize for not being able to publish more often but my company Maldenite Productions requires most of my free time.

I appreciate every reader that takes their time to follow the blog.

Be sure and visit the Malden Historical Museum. A "time capsule" on the corner of Beckwith and W. Howard. http://www.maldenmuseum.com

David Black

http://www.maldenite.com

maldenite@gmail.com