I wrote before about the “Local Mentions” column in the old papers and how they reminded me of modern social media in that you found frequent ads interspersed with sick list notifications, people visiting back and forth, or going out of town for business or pleasure. But back in the early 1900s, you also found companies requesting that people pay their bills and sometimes they got quite blunt about it.
All these examples come from the 1909 and 1910 editions of the Ridgeway Journal. The first was from the paper itself and politely explained why subscribers needed to come in to pay their bills. Other advertisers were more direct. “Pay me, for I need the money. MIKE” got his point across. Lair & Harrison asked nicely: “Please call and settle your account as we want to close up our business.” O. P. Bennett, co-owner of a dry goods store, later owned a grocery store in the building that would be Scotts Grocery, also wrote “I NEED THE MONEY” and asked that anyone who owed Stoughton & Bennett to pay up. I. M. Reeves, owner of a hardware and harness store, believed that advertising often would bring in the overdue accounts – he frequently had 3 or more ads in each paper: “Come in and lets square accounts.”, “I. M. Reeves needs the money. Pay your account.”, “If you owe me, pay me.”, and “I mean business. Settle your accounts at once.”. I wonder how successful he was at getting paid as these ads were printed several weeks in a row.
