The region’s past was stored in The Scranton Times Building on Penn Avenue in Scranton for over 100 years. Old stories and photos from the past lived throughout the historic building.
“If you ever been in that building, it's a lot like being in Narnia," said Sarah Piccini, assistant director of the historical society. "We kept opening cabinets and saying 'oh look, there's more, great, awesome'."
Where the archives would go was uncertain when the Times-Tribune newspaper and its three sister papers — The Citizen's Voice, The Hazleton Standard Speaker and The Republican Herald — sold in September.
Managing editor Joe Butkiewicz made sure the archives found a home.
“I had seen this not happen at a previous newspaper I worked for," he said. "I did not want to see that happen here.”
Now, the Lackawanna Historical Society and Scranton Public Library are the owners of more than 1,200 boxes of archival materials. They're being stored in donated space at Pennsylvania Paper and Supply Company.
"This is history," said Doug Fink, owner of the building and manager of the company. "And to not preserve it ... would be criminal.”
The Scranton Times was established in 1869. E.J. Lynett bought it in 1895. The family owned it until September. The Scranton Times bought The Tribune in the late 80s, early 90s. They published the two papers daily up until when they merged in 2005.
Over the next few months, the historical society will begin the long process to inventory the archives and make them accessible to the public. Local foundations provided financial support for the project.
“How could we say no?" said Mary Ann Moran-Savakinus, director of the historical society. "Of course, we could not refuse but at the same time, how can we manage such a monumental task?”
The historical society found out they inherited the archives in late November.
"As long as we could remove the items from the building by the end of February," said Moran-Savakinus.
Cadden Bros. Moving and Storage volunteered to help.
The historical society's headquarters is in the historic Catlin House on the University of Scranton campus. They're already outgrowing that space.
“This might just have doubled our size, just this collection alone," said Moran-Savakinus.
The archives include photographs, negatives, glass plates, floppy disks, CDs and printer plates. There are also a number of books and city directories and at least three boxes of stories about murders.
Brian Fulton was the newspaper’s library manager for 17 years. His library was in the back of the newsroom, amongst all the old print housed in shelves that moved by turning a big wheel. He wrote a column called This Day in History and hosted a podcast for many years called Historically Hip. He’s now Misericordia University’s electronic resources librarian.
"It's a real resource that could now ... be accessed for many years to come," he said.
The photographs are astounding, said Fulton. He was often surprised by the macabre images that would publish.
"Back then, it was not unheard of, to publish a gruesome car accident scene, or anything like that," he said.
Piccini said the archives give a sense of what everyday life was like in Scranton. There’s boxes of obituaries. Some people were only in the newspaper when they were born and when they died.
"We have those records now too. So we could tell more of the small stories rather than just the big names that you see on street signs and on buildings," she said.
The archives were invaluable to the many reporters and editors who worked in the newsroom for over 150 years, said Butkiewicz.
"Not every newspaper has the depth of this archive," he said.
I was one of those reporters.
I began my career at The Times-Tribune. Those grainy envelopes smelled of old newsprint and guided many stories that needed historical context to be complete. I learned a lot about the community and my own family in those old, delicate clips.
The old newspapers were social media before the internet. There are blurbs on who attended engagement and children’s birthday parties, even dinner parties. Coverage of Lackawanna County was separated not by towns but neighborhoods.
The evolution of newsprint and language is also in those archives. There’s a story about a fire at my family’s homestead, right before my eldest aunt was born. My great-grandfather is described as an “elderly semi-invalid” who was carried to safety. When I was researching the Knox Mine Disaster in Luzerne County, a reporter at the time called a miner who swam underground to safety “husky.” Words you wouldn’t use to describe people today.
The old clips also honor the evolution of newspapers. They went from broad sheets with tiny print and very few ads to including pictures and graphics. The writing was so descriptive, down to minute details about the lace on bride's dresses and the flowers placed on tables at parties.
"It's such a great thing that ... the foresight was there to make arrangements to have, to partner with them to take that on, to keep it alive ... to keep that archive going, just that it's still in existence, and that could be still used," said Fulton.
Butkiewicz said the editors from The Citizens Voice, The Hazleton Standard Speaker and The Republican Herald contacted their historical societies to gift their archives.
