Restoration NewsMedia

Wake Weekly archives now housed in Wake Forest Historic Museum


By Junious Smith III

jsmith@wakeweekly.com | 919-424-1778



WAKE FOREST — More than 60 years of history from The Wake Weekly can now be found at the Wake Forest Historical Museum.

Due to the pending relocation of office space after more than 25 years on Owen Avenue, the bound books were recently sent to the museum on North Main Street. The 111 books date from January 1952 to December 2017, nearly spanning the entire 75-year history of the newspaper. 

Ed Morris, executive director of the museum, said the organization is thrilled to have the archives because of what The Wake Weekly stood for.

“Everything that went on in the area happened in The Wake Weekly,” Morris said. “If you wanted to know what was happening in Wake Forest out to the Hurricanes, Rolesville and Falls Lake, you went to the newspaper. They covered stories others didn’t bother with.”

Morris said Digital NC will soon take the books and convert them to an online publication. 

The N.C. Digital Heritage Center is a statewide digitation and publishing program at UNC’s Wilson Special Collections Library, supported by the State Library of North Carolina. 

“Anything they consider historically worthy, they’ll digitize,” Morris said. “They’ll do it one decade at a time, so we’ll send them the books, they’ll digitize them and bring them back.”

DigitalNC.org boasts original materials from 310 libraries, museums and archives across the state, including more than 540,000 newspaper issues. 

The books will remain at the Wake Forest Historical Museum, which was created in 1976, but the 7,000-square foot building where artifacts reside opened in 2010. The museum is a hub of information from Wake Forest University and the town, along with surrounding areas. The museum is open Tuesday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to noon and 1:30-4:30 p.m. There is no charge to visit the museum.

For additional information, visit www.wakeforestmuseum.org.

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