Hark The Herald Column List
Back in 2012, Virginia Singletary wanted more people to know about and take advantage of the newly digitized archives of the Alto Herald newspaper. Thanks to a generous grant from the Tocker Foundation, these snapshots of life in Alto over the last 100 years had become easily available to anyone with a computer or even a phone. To spread the word, she began writing columns for the Cherokeean, each one mining the old Heralds for information and opinions on some topic of the day.
I will be making these columns available here throughout 2026, augmented with links back to the Herald editions and relevant historical photos from the excellent collection of the Stella Hill Memorial Library. I hope you enjoy these and are inspired to do your own explorations of these wonderful resources.
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Another Mr. Weimar’s Newspaper
Originally published in the February 4, 2015 edition of the Cherokeean Frank L Weimar, whose column LITTLE ADO ABOUT SOMETHING was the subject of my last article, died at his home on November 8, 1957. The newspaper came out on Thursday, and Mr Weimar conveniently died on a Friday morning, so that the next week’s
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Mr Weimar’s Newspaper
Originally published in the January 28, 2015 edition of the Cherokeean Long before there was Chris Davis and HIGH POINTS ON THE EL CAMINO REAL, there was Frank L Weimar (pen name A. Hick) and A LITTLE ADO ABOUT SOMETHING. Mr Weimar, who came to Alto and took over the Alto Herald in 1920 started
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Alto Goes To the Movies
Originally published in the September 24, 2014 edition of the Cherokeean Fifty years ago last month a big change came to everyday life in Alto. That was the month that the Alto Theatre closed its doors for good. The August 6 1964 issue of the Alto Herald offered the advertisement for coming features. The August
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Alto’s Gold Rush
Originally published in the June 25, 2014 edition of the Cherokeean Reading about the couple who found the jars of gold coins buried in their back yard brings to mind Alto’s own “gold story”. In the summer of 1958 word began to be whispered around town about the guy who claimed to have found some
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Fairris Farm
Since we have added the latest group of local history items to our Portal to Texas History it has been great fun to see how they mesh with the Alto Heralds and with the Flickr photograph collection. For instance, one of the papers by Mildred Nicar Bertilino has to do with the History of the
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Alto Laws
For years, Alto schoolchildren have learned in the third grade that Alto was founded as Branchtown in 1849 by Robert Mitchell and renamed Alto in 1852, but Alto was not really a town, not really incorporated until 1909. Once the incorporation took place, it was time to elect city officers and establish the city government.
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Man’s Best Friend
While searching for something else in the on-line Alto Herald newspapers, I came across a poignant front-page story with a picture about man’s best friend. In the latter part of September, 1956 there were three people killed in a head-on collision about 10 miles south of Alto on Highway 69. After the bodies were removed
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Holcomb Reunion
Buzz words for July in Alto – hot – dry – watermelon – and of course “Holcomb Reunion”. The July 24 1958 Herald gives a detailed history of the gathering: In 1897, George and Thomas Holcomb (brothers) who lived in Houston County arranged with their niece, Maggie Holcomb Singletary of Cherokee County to spread the
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Alto’s Wild Weather
The tornadoes that have been so much in the news these last few weeks brought to mind a question. When did we stop calling them cyclones and start calling them tornadoes? That is just the kind of question that can be answered by a search of our online Alto Heralds. The most serious storm to
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Searching The Flashbacks
It has been just about a year since I started scouring the online Alto Herald for interesting stories to share with Cherokeean readers. The search process is not fool-proof, but it is easy and fun. For instance, for my first column on the Titanic, I just put the word “titanic” in the Search box and