The Hazard Herald
The Hazard Herald is a weekly newspaper based in Hazard, Kentucky. The newspaper was founded by Bailey P. Wootton in 1911. The paper celebrated 100 years on June 22, 2011. Today the paper is located on High Street on downtown Hazard and comes out every Wednesday morning.
History
1911–1919
The first edition of The Hazard Herald was hand set and came off the gasoline powered printing press on June 22, 1911. Though there does not seem to be a copy of that first edition still in existence, the effect the Herald had on the local community during its first decade is certainly on record. The Herald was operated by its founder and president at the time, Bailey P. Wootton, along with officers George W. Humphries, James B. Hoge and W.C. Trosper. During that first year, a one-year subscription to the Herald could be purchased for one dollar as the paper's staff covered the growth of Hazard, which at the time was still looking forward to the coming of the railroad a year later, a move that would open up a town that in the years prior was a remote hamlet nearly cut off by the rough and tumble foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.The first train arrived in Hazard in 1912, and the railroad not only opened avenues of travel in and out of the county, but it also paved the way for a more robust coal industry, as noted in the Herald's October 7, 1912 edition: "It will not be long before the coal from this city will be counted by the trainloads instead of the carload." Other notable events during the decade include a fire in December 1913 that ravaged the business section of town, destroying $50,000 worth of property, according to a headline of the day. Consumed in the fire was the D.Y. Combs Hotel as well as the offices of Drs. Gross and Hurst.
On August 17, 1914, the Herald reported on the first automobile to arrive in Perry County: "Last Thursday, Hazard and Perry county were honored by the first automobile ever inside the county limits. We have had the railroad trains upward of two years, and that has ceased to be a wonder; we have had one autocycle, which remained for a few days and departed from whence it came. But the crowning glory of all was the advent of the Ford touring car which passed through our city last Thursday. Now we are on the qui vive for the first aeroplane."
While the Herald maintained a local flavor during its first decade, in this age before the Internet and instant news delivery, the paper also made note of issues of national importance. By 1918, World War I ended with the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II on November 9. The Herald carried the story with the headline: "War Is Ended; Kaiser Abdicates."
By the end of the decade, the paper's yearly subscription rate had increased to $1.50 while Bailey Wootton remained the president of the Herald Publishing Company, and John B. Horton has been serving as the editor.
1920–1929
The 1920s began with the Herald's founder remaining in control as publisher. John B. Horton had been serving as the editor, and the Herald had also carried over from the previous decade a habit of weekly printing "The Herald's Platform for Hazard," still keeping in line with the publishing every Thursday, the Herald remained the county's main source of information, and in 1922 moved into a new building on High Street.It was during this decade that the Herald began offering joint subscriptions with Kentucky's oldest newspaper, The Courier-Journal of Louisville. A one-year subscription for both papers could be purchased for a tidy sum of $6. The Herald also began advertising its job department, which was equipped as a printer service, specializing in ruled mine forms. Prohibition was a heavy topic during the 1920s, with regular arrests of moonshiners being made.
In 1926, with Wootton remaining as publisher, Carroll Wilson became the editor and Arthur M. Hernon was serving as advertising manager. It was perhaps a weather event that defined the decade for Hazard, as the flood of 1927 brought with it thousands of dollars' worth of destruction, and the Herald was there to cover it. According to reports in the June 10, 1927 edition of The Hazard Herald, the Lothair community of Perry County suffered a loss of approximately $200,000 in total. The report reads: "The combined loss of the four camps and the business section of Lothair from the flood has been estimated as being in the neighborhood of $200,000. The hardest hit was the Ky. & West Virginia Power Company, which suffered a loss of $75,000 in the plant and $12,000 in the camp."
In 1928, the paper also covered the Carr Creek basketball team who made it to the state championship game. An editorial was published in March 1928 that praised the Carr Creek team as its members "live clean lives, think pure thoughts, go to bed early, study hard, are accustomed to physical hardships and are unspoiled by worshiping undergraduates and alumni." The editorial noted that the Carr Creek boys were the talk of Richmond and Lexington where tales of their exploits centered on their backwoods lifestyle, not being accustomed to trains and automobiles: "Their reason for success is not that they live in the 'romantic' Cumberlands, beyond the pale of civilization; but rather that they have not had the opportunity to become contaminated with the loose-living, fast-moving, sensation-seeking younger sets of our more thickly populated towns and cities." It was during this decade that the paper also began a second publication day, printing every Tuesday and Friday then in 1929, Overton S. Warren became editor-manager.
1930–1939
The 1930s were a period of growth for the Herald, with founder Bailey Wootton still head of the Herald Publishing Company, but his sights were also set on political office.In 1931, Wootton, a Democrat, won the election for Kentucky's Attorney General, and in 1935 was announced on the front page of The Hazard Herald as a "Probable Candidate" for governor. A small, one-column mugshot stood atop a cutline, which read: "Mr. Wootton, attorney general and chairman of the State Democratic Central Committee, is being mentioned as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Kentucky." Wootton did run in the Democratic primary, and lost to eventual governor A.B. "Happy" Chandler.
Just as the success of the Carr Creek basketball squad in the 1920s brought sports coverage to the front page, Hazard High School's own state championship team kept sports events front and center.
The Heralds March 24, 1932 edition detailed Hazard's "thrilling" victory over Louisville Male by a final score of 15-13 on a field goal by Morton Combs, which "crowned Hazard the best boys' team in Kentucky." The Herald's coverage included several letters of congratulation, including from Mayor of Louisville William B. Harrison, who wrote to Hazard Mayor J.C. Steele: "As long as the boys from my old school, Louisville Male High, had to be defeated, I know of no one to whom I would rather extend my congratulations than you." More than 1,000 people assembled on the square in Hazard to welcome the team, according to the Herald's coverage, as they returned to town from the tournament in Lexington.
The Great Depression was also a major factor across the nation in the 1930s, and times at The Hazard Herald were no different. In his book, The Hazard Herald and other Perry County Newspapers, Charles Wooton, who was first hired on at the Herald in 1933 as a printer's devil, noted that "times were hard" at the paper, and O.S. Warren, the paper's advertising manager, "had problems collecting enough from advertisers and job customers to meet payroll." The paper's press was eventually repossessed, but Wooton was able to locate another press and kept the paper in print.
The Herald continued to cover local items of interest. On September 16, 1936, the paper carried the story of the death of Miss Katharine Pettit, founder of the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County. Pettit was a nationally renowned educator and winner of the Algernon Sidney Sullivan Award for outstanding service to the people of Kentucky.
Coal continued as heavy figure in the Heralds coverage in 1937. A headline in the paper's September 2 edition proclaims coal as "The First and Best Source of Power." The resource was described as "black gold" in the same article in which plans were being made for the city's Labor Day carnival, billed as the Hazard Coal Carnival. It was held on September 6 of that year, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Hazard coal fields. The carnival included a "mile long parade," a fireworks display, the annual golf tournament and an hour of continuous entertainment, as well as the crowning of the Hazard Coal Queen. Along with items of jubilation such as carnivals and state championships, the Herald also told the tales of the other side of society, just as it did on July 20, 1939 with the photo of Jack Davis, who was convicted of slaying Abram Combs on July 8, 1938. Davis, the item noted, was set to die by electric chair at midnight on July 20.
Only two weeks later, on August 4, 1939, The Hazard Herald became The Hazard Daily Herald, printed every evening except Sundays to keep the public informed on news of the fighting in Europe that would eventually draw in the United States and spark World War II.
1940–1949
The Hazard Herald went through many changes in the 1940s. In 1939 Germany invaded Poland and local people wanted a way to quickly get up-to-date news about the war in Europe. The only daily papers that could be bought in the region were from Louisville and Lexington and were a day old by the time they got to Perry County. As a result, The Hazard Herald became a daily newspaper in August 1939 and printed six days a week throughout the 1940s. Bailey Wootton continued as publisher, although mostly ceremonially, from Frankfort. Charles Wooton was made editor-manager of the paper. Charles Wooton hired a public relations and advertising businessman named Ivey Peebles. Peebles was from Jackson, Mississippi. He started selling advertising with year-long contracts which had never been done before at The Hazard Herald. With the change in staffing and frequency of printing came a name change, The Hazard Daily Herald. The paper became a member of the Associated Press Wire Service that gave them rights to up-to-date war news that could be printed in the paper and delivered to residents of Perry County in a timely manor. The circulation rate went up to over 4,000 and could be bought for 25 cents a week. The papers were sold in stores that surrounded coal mines called "Little Merchant." Staff at The Hazard Daily Herald started to gain recognition for their efforts when they won second place as best small daily for the state of Kentucky in 1940.In 1941, Bailey Wootton and his family returned to Hazard from Frankfort after spending a term as Kentucky Attorney General and a term as Director of the Department of Forestry. He continued as publisher, although in a more active role. Wootton's wife, Clara Wootton, was added to the staff of The Hazard Daily Herald. Charles Wooton and Clara Wootton had difficulty working together, Wooton noted in his book about the history of newspapers in Perry County. At this time, Charles Wooton and his father owned the majority of the stock in the company. Wooton's father, E.C. Wooton, had been a partner in Bailey Wootton's law firm and gave his shares to him. Bailey then bought five more shares in the company. This gave him the controlling number of shares. Bailey then bought out the rest of Charles's shares in the paper. Charles then decided to leave the company.
The Hazard Daily Herald printed war news on the front cover of nearly every issue through 1945. They had such headlines as: "Hiroshima becomes valley of the dead" and "Third fleet roaming in Japs waters." After the Japanese surrender during World War II, Hazard residents held a citywide celebration. The spontaneous party was described in the Herald as one of the "greatest and noisiest in city's history." After the war the Herald continued as a daily paper. They still used the wire service for many national and international stories, although they began turning their focus back to more local issues. Bailey P. Wootton had been president and publisher of the Herald since he founded it, but in 1945 he relinquished control and George L. Carey became publisher, with R. W. Griffith as managing editor.
In 1948 Perry County was gripped with a debate over becoming a wet or dry county. The July 4 headline read "Perry Votes Wet." The previous paper, July 2, 1948, had five advertisements urging voters to vote to be a wet county. During the 1940s, the Herald ran a weekly "funnies" section that could be bought for just 10 cents. The section came out on Sundays and boasted some of the first color printing the newspaper had ever used.
In the latter part of the 1940s, R.D. Maney replaced R.W. Griffith as manager-editor, and Leslie Wilson was made news editor. Bailey Wootton moved back to Frankfort in 1946, where he would die of cancer at the age of 79, on April 16, 1949. He was buried in Frankfort Cemetery. In 1949 the Hazard radio station, WKIC, bought the Herald, which for a time carried the slogan: "Read it in the Herald, hear on WKIC."