Browse or Search the Society Newspaper Database
33,778 digitized newspaper pages available
The Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia maintains a comprehensive digital archive of historical newspapers from Southwest Virginia and the surrounding region. Our collection includes over 33,778 scanned newspaper pages, with publications dating back to the early 1800s.
This searchable database provides researchers, genealogists, historians, and the general public with access to important primary source materials documenting the social, political, economic, and cultural history of Washington County and the broader Appalachian region.
Newspapers in our collection include:
- Washington County Journal - Local news and events
- Journal-Virginian - Regional coverage
- Glade Spring Citizen - Community newspaper
- Washington County News - County-wide reporting
- Political Prospect (Abingdon, VA) - Historical political coverage
- Abingdon Virginian - Town and county news
- And many other historical publications spanning two centuries
Each newspaper page has been digitally scanned and processed using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to make the text searchable. You can search by newspaper title, publication date, year, or search within the full text of the articles themselves to find specific names, places, events, or topics of interest.
Our newspaper archive uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to convert scanned newspaper images into searchable text. While this makes it possible to search through decades of historical newspapers, please be aware of the following limitations:
OCR may contain errors or garbled text due to:
- Faded or deteriorated newsprint quality
- Historical typography and fonts that differ from modern text
- Printing imperfections, smudges, or damage to original newspapers
- Complex page layouts with multiple columns and advertisements
- Age-related degradation of the original paper documents
Recommendation: Search results provide text previews extracted by OCR, which may contain imperfect or corrupted words, especially in older editions. For the most accurate reading, we recommend you visit our library in person to view the original newspaper scans directly. Our staff can assist you in locating and accessing the physical newspaper records.
Despite these limitations, the OCR search remains a powerful tool for discovering relevant newspaper pages. Use it to identify potentially relevant articles, then verify the content by examining the original scans at our library.
How to Search Effectively
Our search engine supports advanced operators to help you refine your results and find exactly what you're looking for in the newspaper archive.
"exact phrase"
Search for an exact phrase in quotation marks
Example: "Washington County courthouse"
Finds only articles containing that exact phrase in that order.
+required
This word must appear in all results
Example: +fire +Abingdon
Both "fire" and "Abingdon" must be present in every result.
-exclude
Exclude results containing this word
Example: election -presidential
Finds articles about elections but excludes any mentioning presidential.
word*
Wildcard - matches any ending
Example: farm*
Matches: farm, farmer, farming, farmland, etc.
Combine operators for powerful searches:
+"Civil War" +Virginia -Sherman
Finds articles about the Civil War in Virginia, excluding any that mention Sherman.
"Martha Washington" +hotel
Finds articles with the exact phrase "Martha Washington" that also mention hotel.
rail* +accident -train
Finds accidents involving railroad/railway but not trains specifically.
Pro Tip: Start with simple searches and gradually add operators to narrow results. The search looks through newspaper titles, dates, notes, and the full OCR text of each page.