Paper trail
As a bookseller, restaurateur, publisher and more, Sandy McAdams has no peer. As an historian of local journalism, however, he appears to be a bit out of his depth. In the course of wishing C-VILLE a happy 15th birthday [“Happy Birthday to Us,” September 7], McAdams wrote: “Twenty-five years ago, friends and I put together Charlottesville’s first weekly newspaper.”
Not quite. Charlottesville has been informed and entertained by a number of weekly newspapers in earlier eras. A far from exhaustive list (together with launch dates) includes The Central Gazette (1820), The Virginia Advocate (1827), The Jeffersonian Republican (1835), The Review (1860), The Piedmont Intelligencer (1869) and The Weekly Chronicle (1870). And closer to the present, we’ve had The Charlottesville Messenger (1909), The Charlottesville Guide (1931), The Charlottesville-Albemarle Tribune (1954) and The Jefferson Journal (1971), which folded less than three full years before McAdams and friends gave us The Times of Charlottesville (1976).
Most folks think journalism is about reporting what’s new. But there’s no way to know what’s new without knowing what came before. So, for your birthday, I wish you long life and longer memory.
Antoinette W. Roades
Charlottesville
CORRECTION
In last week’s Restaurantarama column incorrectly reported that Orbit Billiards will open early on Fridays; it will open at noon on Saturdays and Sundays only. Also, WINA will broadcast from the restaurant for UVA away games only.