You can be part of the Titus County History Website! We ask you to help us with various things you may have (or know where to find) that we need to improve the website. Sometimes quite a few things may be listed as needs dictate, and at other times nothing may be listed.
For your information and convenience, we often link to other websites that contain more in-depth information on subjects that we cannot cover comprehensively. We cannot regularly monitor these external pages, and sometimes they are moved or discontinued.
Likewise, our site has grown to many pages with many internal links to other pages. Sometimes we miss linking problems within our own site.
If you discover a bad link, please e-mail us to let us know so that we can re-link to a current page or can remove the link from our site.
We will appreciate any help you can provide on the following:
Please Share Your Photos and Information With Us!
We always need old photographs, local ads, old maps, stock certificates, and local picture postcards from Mount Pleasant, Titus County, and surrounding areas. Please share your items with us so we can share them with others. This website will be built and made better by people of our area sharing their old photos and other items so others can enjoy them.
WANT TO BUY
A copy of the book The Men and Women in World War II From Titus County. If you have a copy of this book that you want to sell, please contact us.
If you can help, please e-mail us at the address shown on under the "Contact Us" topic on the main menu!
What Photos and Other Items Do You Need for the Titus County History Website?
In short, almost anything! We want our site to be a fun and interesting site for anyone who visits it. We are interested in photos that show Titus County life from many time periods. We consider most anything, and may be collecting photos of subjects that haven't been published yet. Please see our Photos Needed page under this topic for a list of the photos we currently need. Just because a photo may not be listed there also doesn't mean we don't want it. It may be a case where we're just not familiar with the subject yet!
Family photos: Due to server limitations on disk space and bandwidth that we are allowed when people view our pages, we generally don't publish family photos unless the photos also show other early Titus County subjects like buldings, events, etc, or the person(s) were prominent members of the community (held a public office, were prominent businesspeople, etc) and the photos are used in telling the story of their office or business. We hope that you understand that this is not meant to disrespect to anyone, but is simply a limitation imposed on us by our website host.
School classes, sports teams, etc.: Likewise, because there are so many class photos and several sports teams each year, we do not publish class photos or sports photos unless they have something unusual about them. For instance, the only sports photos we are interested in relate to the semi-pro team that used to be here, or high school teams that went all the way to state. We have published a few of the very early teams simply because they were very early in the county's history.
We can use class photos (and buildings, too) of schools that no longer exist.
Church Histories and Photos: Due to the number of Titus County churches, time prohibits us from compiling the history of each church. However, if your church has, or would like to compile its own history, we will be pleased to post the history on our website, along with a link to your website (if you have one). We encourage you to ask church members to compile a history of your church, complete with past and current photos. Photos should include previous buildings, if applicable.
In addition to being seen on our website, your church will have a vaulable record of its existance for future generations. We reserve the right to edit all histories submitted to fit our available page space.
Afro-American History and Photos: We are having a hard time finding much history of Titus County's Afro-American community. We would like to have photos and information about Titus County's Afro-American schools, businesses, early life in Titus County, and community leaders. Please contact us if you have this information.
Early Titus County Stock Certificates: As part of our Business and Industry topic, we would like to scan any early stock certificates issued by Titus County corporations, especially if they no longer exist.
Early Titus County Maps: If you own an early Titus County map, we would like to copy it. We are working on ways to post the maps on the website, but even if this is not possible, we would like to copy them to use in confirming the locations of roads, businesses, and other information they may show. We will copy the map(s) and return them to you promptly in the same condition as they were recieved.
How old does the photo have to be?
There's really no answer, since photos needed depend on the photo's subject. Obviously, lots of photos from the 1800s to 1960s, but we may need others depending on content and relevance to pages on our website or future pages that we may be building. We sometimes use photos that are even newer, since we plan to cover the county's history from at least the latter 1800s to present. Please let us know what you have, regardless of age if the photo shows a part of Titus County's history.
How Do I Submit My Photos for Use on the Titus County History Website?
The best way --
We will make arrangements to pick up your documents (in the local Titus County area), scan them (which does not harm them in any way), and promptly return them to you in the same condition as provided to us.
To share a Titus County item with us, simply send us an e-mail telling us what you have and how and when is best to contact you. We will contact you to make arrangements to pick up and return your articles promptly.
If you do not live in or near Titus County, please e-mail us and we will send you our mailing address so you can mail the items to us.
Next best is to scan the articles yourself --
We must work from high resolution photos to be able to resize them. DON'T use the "Save for Web" option if your scanner or software has one. Scan your article(s) at 600 dpi, full color, and save them in .TIF format. We often re-size the photos, so must work from a high-resolution scan to prevent losing detail.
600 dpi scans make very large files depending on the original photo size and content, and each photo takes lots of disk space. One 8x10 photo saved in .TIF format requires approximately 100 Megabytes of disk space. Please be sure that your hard drive has adequate space available before scanning your photos.
We will use the .JPG format if you can't save them in TIF, but prefer .TIF because even though the file is larger, TIF is a "lossless" format and does not lose detail as we copy, resize, and otherwise manipulate it. If you save the photo in the .JPG format, your program will probably ask for a quality setting. Tell it "High" or "Large" quality. The higher the quality, the better the photo will reproduce. Some photo programs will ask, others don't.
Copy the photo(s) to a CD and we'll make arrangements to pick them up. Please don't scan a photo, then print in on your printer and send it to us. Home printers do not have the resolution and clarity needed to be able reproduce the photo well.
Give each photo a unique name. It doesn't matter what you name it, just so the photos aren't all named "jones1.tif" or "scan001.jpg". Please be sure to include all the information that we need for each photo. Here's what we need.
Finally --
You can take the photo(s) to Staples or the UPS Store and have color copies made of them up to 8-1/2" x 11" in size. The copies will be of excellent quality and we can scan the copy. E-mail us and we'll send you instructions to mail them or will pick them up from you locally. Please note that we don't pay for copying.
Do not write on the face of the photo, but give each photo a unique name. You can print it in small letters outside the photo area. It doesn't matter what you name it, just so the photos aren't all named "jones1.tif" or "picture1.jpg". Please be sure to include all the information that we need for each photo. Here's what we need.
Be aware that if a digital photo is large, we can resize it as needed to fit the web page. If a digital photo is small, it is just small and there usually isn't much we can do with it.
Common Questions About Submitting Photos
I have photos that I don't know who the people are. Can I send them?
By all means! If you know the photo was taken in Titus County, we'll record the information that you have and can post a request on the website for visitors to tell us who is in your photo if they know.
My photo never appeared on the website; or, my photo was on the website and now it isn't. Why?
We appreciate all submissions, but are limited as to the amount of server disk space and bandwidth that we can use. To prevent exceeding our disk space and bandwidth limits, we can't post everything we have at once. We will periodically redesign pages and will also rotate photos on pages so people can see ones they haven't seen before.
This doesn't mean that the photo will not be used, and if it was once posted this doesn't mean that it won't be again. Another reason may be that we didn't have enough other photos similar to the photo(s) in question to create a class page for it and are holding it until we obtain enough photos to publish. Other times, we may have obtained another photo that better represents the subject and your photo was replaced by it due to limited server space and bandwidth.
