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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School Days
The start of school has always been big news in small towns. Browsing the September issues of the Alto Herald shows how AISD has developed over the years. The 1914 school year at AHS started off with the organization of a couple of clubs, the Alto Athletic Association and the William Jenning Bryan Literary Society. Surprisingly, both had the same set of officers: Clinton Harrison, Jewel Singletary and Ben Little, with the addition of Grady Singletary as Doorkeeper of the Literary club. Anyone who knew my late father-in-law would agree that a Literary Society is the last place to expect…
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Gone With the Wind
Did you know that Gone With the Wind was originally to be called Tomorrow Is Another Day? And that when it came out it sold 600,000 copies for an unprecedented $3.00 each? These facts are found in Editor Frank Weimar’s column A Little Ado About Something by A. Hick in the Alto Herald of February 18, 1937, even before the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. I never knew Mr. Weimar well, but I was a little surprised to find him following the news about the book and the casting of the movie in his column throughout the years 1937-1940.…
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Clubs
Two of Alto’s best known and best loved clubs, the Lions Club and the Thursday Study Club, were both formed almost 100 years ago. Of course the Herald reported on them then and through the years.
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Mystery Solved
After revealing last weeks mystery person, who was definitely not a rat, we cover some contests for the schoolkids – some of whom you might recognize. They weren’t rats, either, but rats were involved.
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Mystery Person
Who is this person who was all over the pages of the Alto Herald for decades?
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Titanic
Reporting in the Alto Herald about the Titanic disaster – at the time and through the years