The Walton Tribune Monroe GA

As the 19th century retreated into the history books and a new one stretched ahead, the average Waltonian had not the faintest inkling of the promise and excitement to which he had fallen heir.In 1900, not one citizen owned an automobile, not one home boasted central heating or plumbing or electricity. And the nearest thing to a municipal water system was the well on the courthouse square into which an irate member of the earliest Board of Commissioners had dumped the august body’s minute book in a fit of pique.President William McKinley, who himself abhorred violence, soon would fall victim of an anarchist terrorist’s bullet. Occupancy of the White House by the little-inhibited Theodore Roosevelt family soon would come to pass.Marconi hailed the new era by signaling the letter “S” across the Atlantic from Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland.It was a time of progress, and in the town of Monroe a group of farsighted businessmen gathered to discuss the practicality of establishing a new newspaper.Walton’s first paper, the Walton Journal, had come into being in Social Circle, first published Nov. 6, 1869, by Postmaster Abram M. Colton. Hot on its heels in January 1870 came Monroe’s first, and the county’s second, newspaper, the Southern Witness. Soon thereafter came Rough Rice’s Ready Reporter, published by A.M. Rice, and the following year saw the Monroe Advocate and the Walton Casket appear at the county seat.