On this day in 1898, the Weekly Banner published a strange story on the front page of the paper about "A Kissing Bee on Broad Street."
Despite much discussion amongst our library staff, we have no earthly idea why the coroner was raising money (and quite little of it) by kissing other professional men in town, or why the story ended when Tom Hunnicut, superintendent of the Athens Electric Railway, appeared.
It seems to be yet another example of the different standards of journalism that existed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where it was apparently not at all unprofessional to publish, on the front page of the weekly paper, inside jokes.
If you have any ideas about this story and why the coroner would have had to kiss for coins, please let us know via the comment section below, or our This Day in Athens email address, Heritage.Room.Blog@gmail.com.
Learn More?
- Weekly Banner, Aug. 1898 - Oct. 1899 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
- Athens Historic Newspaper Archive collection in the Digital Library of Georgia.
- History of Athens & Clarke County, Georgia by H. J. Rowe in the Heritage and general collections.
- 237 Kissing books in various collections at the Athens-Clarke County Library.
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