Frostburg Mining Journal
1898
Frostburg townspeople, most of them coal miners, raised more than enough money to buy the two-acre Beall’s Park for the location
1986
1987
April 9, 1898
Uncomfortable Condition. “The Normal School at Frostburg is not a dead certainty it now appears.” – Cumberland Times. Quite so. In other words, it is a live kicking certainty.
One or the Other. “It now looks as if the Frostburg normal school appropriation had met the same fate as the Western Maryland Hospital appropriation, and that lack of formalities leaves it uncertain as to who has authority to obtain or use the fund. If this is so, our sympathy takes the place of congratulations.” – Cumberland News. In the outset the Journal gave expression to a strong plea for the hospital appropriation, but both the News and those who describe the Journal as “locally selfish” seemed to take it as a matter of course. As to the discovery of “lack of formalities” these seems to be a professor of superfluous utility handing around outside of the legislative halls. Or the News’ party is placing the wrong men inside.
April 2, 1898
March 19, 1898
A Proposition. The School Board and Cumberland papers have all along contended for unity of action to get the Normal School to the county. There is excellent ground for belief that the Frostburg bill, unobstructed by adverse influences, will succeed. And that success will bring it to the county. Now, gentlemen all – will you make your professions good by helping us? We may need your aid to bring it to the county – can we depend up on it? Speak out loud.
Normal School. A telegram from Hon. James Campbell Thursday afternoon announced that he expected a favorable report in sum of $20,000 on Frostburg bill. He is doing intelligent, faithful, heroic work for this place as the situs, and as he is undoubtedly an influential member of the House, the Journal looks for its passage through that body. And the people need not be less sanguine of Mr. Dick’s devotion, energy and success.
Notice. All persons are hereby warned against shooting, or trespassing for the purpose of shooting, on the meadows, pastures, or cleared lands of the Consolidation Coal Company, except the rifle range of the Frostburg Rifle Association. Persons disregarding this notice will be prosecuted. B. S. Randolph, Mining Superintendent.
March 12, 1898
Annapolis and Frostburg “Convictions.” “The proposition to establish a State Normal School in Western Maryland does not appear to be in favor at Annapolis. This is partly due to the fight for its location being made by Cumberland, Frostburg and Oakland, but more to the conviction that Western Maryland does not need such an institution. The present State Normal School meets all requirements, and the money asked for could be used to much better advantage in other educational work.” – Baltimore News. Some high school authorities differ with the “conviction” at Annapolis, among them the Board of School Commissioners of Allegany County. The same body’s discovery and subsequent contentions are at variance also with the News’ two notions set forth in its last sentence, especially that which suggests superior claims for money “in other educational work.” This presumably includes the Johns Hopkins aristocratic levy upon State charity. But if that institution had shown ordinary financial acumen when Hon. A. P. Gorman advised it to dispose of holdings, since collapsed, it would not now be compelled to ask the members of its patrician faculty become high-pensioned mendicants at the castle-gates of the State treasury. The normal school claim is not based upon benevolent impulse, but upon the economic dictum which gave origin, life and utility to the public school system – an elementary education of the masses, leaving the classes to build thereon according to their tastes, bias, aspirations and ability. Hence, in the Journal’s humble judgment, a single dollar given to promote educational purposes beyond those provided for by the spirit, not to say the letter of the public school law, is a dollar distinctly misappropriated.
They are Moving. “Williamsport and Boonsboro voters have declared in favor of the establishment of waterworks. The spirit of progress is abroad in Maryland towns.” – Baltimore News. Yes – in “Williamsport and Boonsboro,” as stated. In Cumberland, for the new normal school, less bad water, prospective factories for the town, and pulp mill denudation out of town. In Frostburg more of the best water in the state; hence, more of the best health, and the State Normal School No. 2. From this recital it is seen there is only one place – that a city, that seems to be going forward rapidly by making long steps backward.
March 5, 1898
The Lonaconing Review seems to have lived on Georges Creek to little purpose and less effect. Its latest aberration takes shape in the assumption that – Frostburg’s advocates (voiced by the Journal) have shown that they favor the “dog in the manger” policy by stating that they would rather go outside of the county than to Cumberland for a site. The Journal has never made any such statement. That notion originated in Cumberland. The Journal did say in effect that a State school, established and conducted in Cumberland under Cumberland auspices, in the very nature of things, would be of little more, if any advantage to outsiders than a real State school located in any other county. To that we stick. The bill now in the House of Delegates, however, provides for a State school under State management, no matter where it is located. If Cumberland can obtain that sort of school, the Journal prefers its location there to any outside the county. In every essential respect, however, Frostburg is very far the superior place for it. The paper, therefore, which sees “smallness” in that attitude doesn’t know the name of the first letter in the alphabet of bigness.
February 26, 1898
And then it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have “the councilmen or others” return the “roast” to the lawyers, school commissioners, etc., who wish to locate a Normal School in a town whose people will not only not get “a supply of pure water,” but compel its women to boil the sulfur, pulp, and pus out of the Potomac. And this is from the same issue of the same paper concerning Frostburg: The streets are reeking with mud, the crossings are well nigh submerged and the pavements, that ought to be self-cleansing, are sticky with the miserable stuff. Thence, with all its baleful absorptions, it is taken into the houses to soil the floors, carpets and eventually load the atmosphere with poison. If this kind of warfare is continued, the Normal School, when secured, will have to be located in some community which either has no paper, or has one which will refrain from pasting a black eye on its own town or that of its neighbors. The Journal is not making a record for consistency or brightness in its campaign to drive the Normal School away from Allegany county.” – Cumberland News.
The trouble with the Journal is – it tells the truth – to its own town authorities as well as other people. If the gentlemen in charge here would use soft-weather occasions to pull that awful coat of cinder, ashes and coal-dust from Main street into the gutters and turn on some of town’s water, the trouble could so far be easily and inexpensively removed. In brief, we are suffering from a costly error that can be removed in much less time than it was committed. And this will be done whether Normal School comes or not. As to driving the Normal School out of the county – the Journal does not hesitate to say that so far as the county is concerned, it would just as well go outside as in Cumberland. For by the time the narrow dimensions of the Academy are filled with the scions of the city’s wealthy families, to be educated at home at State expense, there will be but little room for poor outsiders from anywhere.
What Next? First get the new Normal School for Allegany county and then let the people of the county peaceably agree among themselves, through proper representation as to the most suitable place, all things considered, at which to locate it.” – Cumberland Alleganian. “The people of the county” have been “peaceably” paying Cumberland taxes these many years – so many, indeed, that, like the pickpocket, if there is anything Cumberland loves more than everything else when there is a jewel within reach, it is “peace.”
Feruary 19, 1898
Danger. Philadelphia is suffering from a typhoid epidemic traceable to impure water in certain portions of the city. There is this peculiarity about water – only the very best brand is fit to drink. – Cumberland Times. Why, then does the Times want to expose Normal School attendants to the perils which lurk in Potomac water? Why place the school in a locality where the only brand “fit to drink” will be unavailable to the pupils? To these questions the answer of “superior railway facilities” is almost profane.
The Difference. For the benefit of some people who do not fully understand the situation the Journal explains that the proposed Normal School, if located at Frostburg, is designed to be a State institution – established, maintained and conducted by the State. In asking for its location here, therefore, nothing from the county is sought – not a cent, unless a site is selected on the very ample school lot, ground which the taxpayers have long since paid for. In Cumberland, however, the scheme comprises the conversion of county property into the use of an institution to be run by Cumberland trustees and generally – not as a State, but as a Cumberland school at State expense.
February 12, 1898
“Make No Mistake” The Cumberland Times argues that “Cumberland is the Logical Place” for the location of the Normal School. Cumberland is also “the logical place” for typhoid fever and all other bacterial diseases. If the Times doesn’t believe this the Journal has lots of Cumberland testimony to that effect. The Times says further: “The location of a school is as important as the location of a court-house, a store, or any other public enterprise.” The Journal thinks it more important. A court-house or a store supplied with impure water is very bad. But a Normal School building, set down in an incubator of bacilli and a nursery of fission-fungus will be for at least eight months in the year a wholesale challenge to the Grim Reaper to come and do his worst. “Make no mistake,” echoes the Journal, especially the sort that will locate the victims of Cumberland water underground.
Important. The Journal has information from Annapolis this morning to the effect that Cumberland is seeking to have “the State Board of Education arbitrate the matter of location between that place and Frostburg.” To yield to that proposal is to give up the fight! The true arbiters of the question are the majority of the county’s delegation in the Legislature! They are the elect of our people – not of the State! Let us stick to this!
To the Allegany Delegation. As the true arbiters of Normal School location, have you calculated the possible, not to say probable cost of typhoid fever in a State school in Cumberland? How much in loss of time through sickness? How much in doctors’ bills? How much in funeral expenses? And there are other questions.
The Normal School. Senator Dick has introduced a bill fixing State Normal School No. 2 in the town of Frostburg upon such site as may be agreed upon. The Lonaconing Star is out this week in a powerful editorial article favoring Frostburg for the location.
February 5, 1898
The Journal hopes that when Hon. James Campbell is informed, in connection with the location of the Normal School in Frostburg, that “the Sixth District wants everything,” he will respond by announcing that Frostburg is not in “the Sixth District” referred to. That district, coming westward, stops at Cumberland.All Frostburg has is a post-office, and it is reported that Cumberland, the western terminus of the district, has selected for us an incumbent of that place. Can’t we, then, have something – just something; in fact, just one thing? Can’t we have the Normal School?
The second article focuses on Baltimore vs. Western Maryland: The Baltimore American, referring to “the Sixth district,” said concerning the Normal School — Of course they want it. Next day the Cumberland News, referring directly to the movement of “a number of leading citizens of Frostburg” toward obtaining its location here, echoed the same innuendo – Of course, they want it. What has this region got to show for the millions of tribute its labor has paid to both Cumberland and Baltimore? Nothing whatever but the right to keep on working and contributing!
January 22, 1898