The Ridgeway Journal was not only a source of news for its readers, it was a source of entertainment. Long before radio and TV were common, people looked forward to their papers for short stories, poetry, and serials (books where only a chapter or two was published per week.)
In 1891, in the first year of the Journal, there was usually a page with at least with several short stories and poems. Page 3 in the July 10, 1891 edition on page 3 was a poem entitled “Spring” and several stories, including the story “Miraculous Elijah”, about an elevator operator who rescued a number of people from a burning hotel with his elevator (sadly dying of his own burns). If you needed spiritual guidance, you could read the sermon written by Dr. T Dewitte Talmage, a Presbyterian minister who published his sermons in over 3000 papers. His sermons appeared in the Journal from 1891 until his death in 1902. Sermons continued to be a feature of the paper through the years.
The serial stories were fascinating. Just like our television series, the readers got just a part of the story each week, with a synopsis at the beginning of each chapter to help the reader catch up. In in 1910, the Journal readers enjoyed “Rosalind at Redgate”, a book that had a chapter or two each week from February to August 4, 1910, and was even illustrated. The next week, the readers started a new serial titled “The Little Brown Jug at Kildare” which stretched out to February 23, 1911. Both stories were written by the same author.
Stories, poems and serials continued to be printed in the Journal through the 1920s with the paper expanding to as much as 12 pages per issue, but during the Great Depression, the paper shrank to just 4 pages and the extra entertainment was apparently dropped for lack of space.