Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

As I write this, 39 Bellefonte Avenue is an empty lot. The building that stood there burned down several years ago. But once upon a time, that spot held a very special place in Lock Haven. That was the home of the Clinton County Times.

I’ve written before about the Clinton County Times; that newspaper will always hold a special place in my heart. It was founded about 1900, and was at 39 Bellefonte Avenue for quite a few years. In 1920, it moved to Vesper Street, and then in 1936, back to Bellefonte Avenue, up the street at 115. I once had a guy approach me in the grocery store insisting that it had always been at 115 Bellefonte Avenue, because that was what he remembered. He was not receptive to my point that he could not possibly remember 1900.

I appreciate the Clinton County Times because of its sheer entertainment value. This was the most insane newspaper Clinton County has ever had. It’s why I’ve pulled so many of my columns from it over the years.

I have a file in my office labeled “Clinton County Times.” And it is stuffed with photocopies of some of the crazy stuff they reported on back then. Whenever things get a little slow for me, I always check the Times between 1901 and 1920, which seems to have been the high point for the insane articles.

I have one from 1915: “Lock Haven Fired Upon.” It tells of a pre-WWI battle in the greater Lock Haven area, involving a German attack repelled by several local citizens. Though the people and places mentioned in the article are definitely real, the incident is not, and in fact was said to take place in 1923—Eight years in the future when the article was run. There is no other indication that this was fiction, and no explanation given when this was run on the front page.

In 1904, the publisher ran a piece about three dogs that were on a farm on the east end of town. These dogs were chasing and attacking people, and instead of a balanced editorial piece, the article deteriorated into more of a personal threat, ending with “We will accommodate your dogs to just what they deserve.”

Rational behavior was not the strong point of the Clinton County Times. In 1920, they reported on a contest being held by a local theater offering a cash prize to anyone who could spend the entire night handcuffed in Cedar Hill Cemetery. Th prize, seventy-five dollars, was awarded to Clara Bryan of Flemington.

And then there was the time in May of 1904 when nothing happened in Mill Hall. Now, any normal newspaper simply doesn’t report when nothing happens. But the Times ran an entire column on it, beginning,”This week has been another stickler on news getting. There has not even been a dog fight to record or your scribe or your scribe would take pains to give it in detail.” This went on for approximately five column inches, and concluded,”As it is, however, there is little doing and when nothing is doing there is nothing to report.” Which completely ignored the fact that they’d just reported on it considerably.

If the Clinton County Times had one crowning accomplishment, however, it was the weekly “Men Of The Monument” column. This began sometime around 1915. A reporter claimed to have interviewed the stone soldiers on the Civil War monument. Not the men who posed for the carving, the statues themselves. Every week, the Times would run a column about the views and quotes of these stone soldiers, ranging from women voting to the latest flood to the holidays. The soldiers had some interesting viewpoints, and this column continued to run weekly until the Times closed in the 1970s.

It’s one of the things I feel lucky to write about—I’m fortunate to live in a county with such a rich source of entertainment. If you’re looking for an example of just how insane our history could get—Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Clinton County Times.