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Community History Archives

Community History Archive Partner

Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library

Bern, Kansas

Explore this community history collection to discover the people, places, organizations, and events of Bern.

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14Titles

Explore publications and collections from the past.

1860 to 2020Dates represented

See individual titles for available dates.

235,710Archive pages

Historical pages reported for this collection.

Explore local history

Discover the people, places, and stories of Bern, Kansas.

Explore the past of Bern, Kansas through newspapers as well as yearbooks and annuals in the Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library's digital archive. Its fourteen titles include material from 1860 to 2020.

You can open the archive using the link below.
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  • Selected titles

    Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library shares titles including “Sabetha High School Yearbooks” and “Bern Press”.

  • Free and open access

    No subscription or payment required.

  • Different views of the past

    A familiar name or event takes on another dimension in the newspaper coverage of its time, alongside the stories that mattered to the readers of that issue. Yearbooks and annuals bring together the people and activities their editors chose to remember, offering a view of life within a particular year.

Reporting from the time can reveal how people described the events, work and concerns of their day, placing a local story within the history unfolding around it. Whether you are tracing a family connection, exploring a local event or sharing history with a class, there is more to discover than names and dates alone. Explore the archive online for free, without a subscription.

Explore the collection

Titles in this collection

Browse fourteen titles and 235,710 digitized pages, with material from 1860 to 2020. This collection is shared through Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library's partnership with Advantage Archives. Some years or items may be missing between the dates shown.

A familiar name or place can be the beginning of a story. Explore the titles below to see where that connection leads.

Bern Gazette

33,110 pages from 1898 to 1942

Bern Press

3,856 pages from 1889 to 1898

Census

4,014 pages from 1860 to 1880

Centralia High School Scoop

128 pages from 1925 to 1926

Centralia Scoop

96 pages from 1926 to 1927

Corning Chief

104 pages in 1884

Corning Clipper

772 pages from 1893 to 1894

Home Press

62 pages in 1889

Nemaha County Republican

2,576 pages from 1879 to 1882

Sabetha Herald

1,720 pages in 2016

Sabetha Herald

161,720 pages from 1885 to 2020

Sabetha High School Yearbooks

16,244 pages from 1950 to 2018

Sabetha Republican Herald

10,598 pages from 1893 to 1905

Sabetha Weekly Herald

710 pages from 1884 to 1885

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About the Library

About Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library

The Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library is dedicated to serving the Sabetha community and the surrounding areas by offering a wide range of valuable and free programs, resources, and services. Whether it's through educational programs, engaging events, or providing access to vast historical archives, the library strives to meet the evolving needs of its patrons.

Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library photo 1

Library History

The History Of Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library

Since its establishment, the Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library has been a cornerstone of the Sabetha community, offering not just books, but also programs and resources aimed at improving the quality of life for residents. The library continues to expand its digital and physical collections, ensuring patrons have access to a wealth of information.

Local History

Did You Know?

Did you know that the Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library offers access to digitized historical newspapers like the Sabetha Herald and Bern Gazette , giving researchers and history enthusiasts a glimpse into the local past through thousands of pages of archived records?

More ways to explore and share local history

Research Guidance

Look beyond a familiar name

A name, class, or school activity connected with Bern can lead to other pages from the same period. The yearbooks and annuals shared by the Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library can help you follow a student or organization beyond one entry. Captions, activities, and nearby pages may add context when present, while each volume offers only a view of school or community life at that time.

Where the available dates overlap, use a name, activity, or organization in a yearbook or annual as a starting point for a newspaper search. Compare the details carefully; a similar name is a lead to investigate, not an identification by itself.

Keep the title, date, page or item reference with each useful finding. Separate the words in a historical account from your interpretation, and note conflicting perspectives rather than choosing one too quickly. These notes help you connect a local story to its evidence and explain what remains uncertain.

Review collection titles

Community Partnership

Keeping local history a community resource

This community archive is made possible by the collaboration of the Mary Cotton Memorial Public Library, its community, and Advantage Archives. Together, these partnerships preserve local sources and give people a way to explore, learn from, and share the history around them.

Advantage Archives covers ongoing archive hosting, storage, development, and maintenance. The institution and its community do not pay a subscription, seat license, annual support contract, or other recurring archive-service charge. Local history remains a community resource, not a subscription to maintain.

Would you like to see more of your community's history preserved and accessible? Start a conversation with your library, newspaper publisher, historical or genealogical society, museum, or school about the materials they would like to share and a possible partnership with Advantage Archives.

Learn about partnerships
Read All About It

Stories, research tips, and archive news

Read All About It connects archive research with the people and institutions preserving local history. Explore partner and community stories, project updates, research ideas, and perspectives on digitization, education, and working with primary sources. Use the articles as a starting point for your next question or a new way to share a discovery.

Newest published articles

March 18, 2025

It’s Your Community’s History, So Why Rent Something You Own?

We believe that history belongs to the communities where it was made - not locked behind paywalls or inaccessible due to budget restrictions. Subscription-based services and large content aggregators are generally more concerned with "content" and less concerned with the history that content contains. Their models typically involve a reoccurring charge for a plan that renews annually or licensing agreements with the library based on population served or circulation numbers. You are essentially Renting Access To YOUR History.
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