THOM ANDERSON: Back issues of the Daily Times would help a lot

“Gone busted!” reads a handwritten note on an ad for the Florence Daily Times. It is in a 1925 City Directory at the Drs. Bruce & Lee Foundation County Library.

Who handwrote the note is unknown, but the reason for the “busted” comment is obvious. That year the Times folded, sold to the News Review, which absorbed it and today is known as the Morning News.

The Times’ ad declared that Florence people read the Times each day because its ads spotlight “the store that gives superior service… sells for less” and offers “quality above ordinary.” The same directory carried an ad for the News Review stating that “your first duty, to yourself, your home, your home town, is to read The News Review.” Apparently, enough Florentines agreed with the latter.

The Times’ history went back to Florence’s early days. Some earlier publishing ventures evolved into the Times, which went daily about 1894.

A tragedy of Florence history is that the files of the Times were lost. I dream that one day somebody from an old local family will find bound copies of the Times in an attic. Many questions about Florence history between 1894 and 1925 could be answered.

The 1925 directory listed Mason C. Brunson as editor of the Times and Charles Gardiner as business manager. The News Review was headed by J.B. Parrnell as president, John A. Zeigler as editor and J.M. O’Dowd as manager. O’Dowd later acquired Parnell’s and Zeigler’s shares of the business.

The earlier 1923 directory locates the Times in the building now occupied by the Hyman Law Firm, and the News Review at 15 N. Dargan, on an upper floor above Zeigler’s Drug Store.

The Times moved to the southeast corner of Evans and Coit, which veteran Florentines might remember as site of a tiny bus station that served at least three bus lines. The News Review moved to a storefront in the 100 block of East Evans Street, where it remained until the late 1940s.

When the papers merged, one history of Florence County says, the circulation of the News Review was 1,800 but a year later grew to 2,913, a 62 percent increase.

With the acquisition, Mason C. Brunson, editor of the Times, joined the staff of the News Review. This was announced in the March 29, 1925 edition of the News Review, which said, “We consider Mr. Brunson the most valuable asset obtained by the merger … (and) with his daily counsel and aid, The Morning News Review will grow into a fuller worth and usefulness.”

That prediction was right. A few years later Zeigler moved on and Brunson became editor, remaining so for about 20 years. Brunson’s father, W.A. Brunson, was an early Florence leader and was involved in early local journalism and Mason Brunson’s sons went into journalism, mostly in Baltimore.

As the son of a Morning News employee, I had the run of the East Evans office, and Brunson was the first editor I remember. He let me invade his office to look in wonder at The Associated Press machines that typed out news with no apparent help from anyone. As if by magic. Kind of like the Internet. …

Mr. Brunson gave me my first watch, a pocket watch in his desk drawer that stubbornly refused to run, no matter how he coaxed it. I took it outside, shook it a bit and it started to run. I ran excitedly back to his office to show him it was now running. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath, but anyway, he didn’t take it back.

It was a little before my time, but old timers told me that before network broadcasting, crowds gathered outside the Evans Street offices on days of major sporting events or elections to get partial AP reports from a strong-lunged reader.

My first job at the paper was posting quarter-by-quarter football scores on chalkboards outside the Evans Street offices in the 1940s.

The older Times started as a daily in 1894 and the News Review (Morning News) started in 1922 as a weekly and went daily in early 1923.

The Morning News left its East Evans location in the late 1940s for South Irby and later for its present South Dargan location.

Thom Anderson is the former editor of the Morning News. Contact him THIDBIT@aol.com.