Newspapers / The Warren Record (Warrenton, … / April 25, 1984, edition 1 / Page 9
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ttarrtn Eecnrfi Sec,ion B * Wednesday, April 2 Now In his fourth month of "retirement," Gid King is shown above in front of his general store in Oakviile. Although King is no longev in business, the store, which he fondly calls Oakville's "Country Club" is used at night for a little genteel card-play ing and conversation by neighbors and friends. (Staff Photo) Probably A Page 1 Story What's In A Newspaper Name? National Geographic News Service WASHINGTON — The newspaper you are reading probably is called the News or the Sun or the Star or the Post or the Journal, and that's OK. Most American newspapers have names like those. On the other hand, a relative handful have names that depart, sometimes startlingly, from the two dozen or so standards. And a good story usually ac companies the exceptions. Take, for example, the Laramie, Wyo., Boomerang. It was named for a mule. The Boomerang was founded in 1881 by Bill Nye, a well-known literary humorist of the time. Nye was known to imbibe a bit from time to time, and when he did so, he would usually disappear from home. Luckily, he would usually do so with his mule, and the mide, with Nye aboard, always came back. Because he always came back, Nye named him Boomerang. And when he started a newspaper, he gave it the same name. A Matter of Vindication Or take the Youngstown, Ohio, Vindicator, George Kelley, a longtime editorial writer, says that it was founded by one J.H. Odell, a printer who had been run out of Beaver Falls, Pa., around the time of the Civil War for the sin of being a Democrat. "When he got to Youngstown," Kelley says, "he started a newspaper that he hoped would vindicate him. And that's supposedly where the name came from." Fans of Superman will have no trouble guessing where the name of the Metropolis, 111., Planet came from. The paper had been the Metropolis News, but it took its new name in 1971 when the town of Metropolis officially "adopted" Superman. "An Indiana woman once wrote to me whose name was Lois Lane, offering to do a column," says the Planet's editor, who is not Perry White but Clyde Willis. "It didn't seem right to me, though." Some unusual names are rooted in another era and then hang on. The Larned, Kan., Tiller and Toiler was originally founded in Indiana in 1882 by Frank P. McMahon, a supporter of farmers and workingmen. He took the paper and its name, representing those two groups, to Larned a few years later, and the name remained. Another political organ was the Cecil Whig of Elkton, Md. Editor Donald Henning says that Decil County, Md., already had a paper called the Democrat in 1841 when supporters of the opposing Whig Party decided to launch a paper of their own. The Whig is still the Whig. At the time of the launching of the Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Casket in 1852, a casket was a box in which a woman kept her precious jewels. As the meaning of the word changed, the newspaper con sidered a name change, but decided to stick with its original moniker., which has its practical benefits. "I can go into the office of an advertiser in Mon treal, and he's heard of the Casket," says D. L. Gillis, the weekly's editor. Some newspapers get their unusual names from the Industry of their home communities. These in clude the Oil City, Pa., Derrick; the Hereford, Texas, Brand; and the Crystal Falls, Mich., Diamond Drill, located in the iron mine country where diamond bits are used on drills. Others take their names as a logical offshoot of the names of their communities. Tecumseh, Neb., is named for an Indian chief, so its newspaper is the Chieftain. There aren't many canals in Venice, Fla., but it still makes sense that its newspaper is the Sun Coast Gondolier. And sometimes, the combination of community and newspaper results in a pun, as in two cases in Arkansas, the De Queen Bee and the Yellville Echo. But other names are less easily explained. Several suburban Detroit newspapers are called the Eccentric. The founders of the original Birming ham, Mich., Eccentric were a group of local bachelors who founded a social club in the pattern of the Explorers, to which Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg belonged in "Around the World in Eighty Days." The Michigan group called its club the Eccentrics; hence the name. A Picayune Coin One of the best-known offbeat names is the New Orleans Times-Picayune. When the New Orleans Picayune was founded in 1837, it sold for about 6 cents, the value of a Spanish coin with that name. By 1890, the paper's name was established. In that year, two brothers who had worked on the Picayune started their own paper in Beeville, Texas. In memory of their former employer, they called it the Beeville Picayune, and the name lives on in the Beeville Bee-picayune. But sometimes, the origins of a paper's name are obscure. William Enders, editor of the Durand, Wis., Courier-Wedge, says the name is the result of an old merger between the Courier and the Entering Wedge. But he has no idea why the entering Wedge was named the Entering Wedge. Of course, someone deciding to found a news paper today and determined to give it an unusual name could follow the example of the newspaper in Wahoo, Neb. The Wahoo newspaper is — the Wahoo Newspaper. Ookville Establishment Is Closed The Old Country Store Passing By The Wayside By KAY HORNER Staff Writer There once was a time, long before Henry Ford's first automobile hit the still unpaved streets, when a general mercantile store was more "general" than a child of the specialized 1980s could imagine. No rural community could have operated with any degree of efficiency without such an establish ment. It was the only place, between wherever and town, that a farmer could get plow parts, a home maker could get baking powder, and a seamstress could get bolts of cloth. It was the place where the richest of com modities, the latest news, was dispensed, and where in some places, the post office was housed. The Warren County community of Oakville, located about nine miles northeast of Warrenton, had such a store at what is commonly described as "the fork in the road." It opened in 1880 under the proprietorship of W. P. Rodwell who operated it until the 1920s when he sold it to John Wesley King. King, in turn operated the store until 1930 when he closed it to open another store down the road closer to home. At King's death in 1937, his son, G. W. (Gid) King became proprietor. Business was gooa ior many a year, dui uus pasi December, Gid King's Country Store closed its doors, a victim of good roads, automobiles, and a general decline in the farm population. King sat at a card table in his store recently amid empty shelves and display cases and talked about the changes that brought about the closing. "It has gotten to the point that country stores just can't get wholesalers to serve them," he explained. ' 'They don't want to come out except for $200 or $300 orders, and that squeezes the little man right out." "The big change has been the loss of labor," King continued. "Labor has gone to the cities or the suburbs. All the old heads of the families have died out. Down this road here, one tenant house after another is falling down. Farming has gotten in right bad shape." When farming was in right good shape, King's country store was a thriving business, especially in the spring and summer when fields were under cultivation. In those days, there was no way King, a farmer himself, could operate his store on a regular schedule. But that posed no problem because there was no way his customers, mostly farmers, could shop on a regular schedule. "People got used to coming to the store early in the morning before I went to the farm," King said. "Then at noon, when I came home for lunch, they'd stop by, and then after supper I'd be open until 9 or 10." Home was right next door, so the arrangement was convenient. But after 50 years as farmer and merchant, King opted for a change. He sold his inventory down to a paltry few items, then sold those to his wife, Mamie, to officially close up shop. "When I first closed up, I missed it so badly," he commented. "But for a long time with Mamie's teaching and me farming, we weren't together that much. Then at night, I was at the store. She was what we called a 'store widow.' We just decided we were getting old and now was the time for a change." King, 76, was born and reared in Oakville, and went to Oakville School until it consolidated with nearby Wise School where he graduated. He met his wife, the former Mamie Long of Ox ford, when she was visiting relatives in Paschall, and he still marvels that he ever persuaded her into marriage. "I don't know what she saw down here," he laughed. "She left Oxford in 1935 where she'd been living in town with electricity and running water and came out here to live in the country with me." The Kings have lived all their married life in the house next to the store, the house King's father built. "I've spent more money keeping that house up for 50 years than my father spent to build it," King chuckled. The Kings have two daughters, Eleandor Wood who now lives in Tuscon, Ariz, and Ann Fleming, who lives a short distance from her parents in Oak (Continued on page 8B)
The Warren Record (Warrenton, N.C.)
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April 25, 1984, edition 1
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