The Roanoke Times reports that Washington and Lee University is now home to the newspaper collection of Frederic Farrar, an alumnus from the class of 1941. Farrar is slowly donating the documents to his alma mater, with 2,000 already delivered and "the best stuff yet to come." The focus of the collection is historic events as news stories, including the election of almost every president (he's missing a paper on Ike's reelection in '56), major battles and other events. The oldest piece is a 1559 item recounting the death of France's King Henry II.
A journalism professor at W&L has designed a class around the collection. The papers are also being catalogued and will be made available for public research, and a website has been created to highlight the newspapers.
