Ripping from the Headlines - Raiding Old Newspapers for Call of Cthulhu

One of the challenges I found in setting a Call of Cthulhu campaign in Boston was in understanding what the city was really like around a century ago. Sometimes I find it easier to do things in a fictional city or in one I've never been in than as opposed to one some 25 miles away from me - a city I go to regularly and which is the cultural center of my area.

I've found raiding Boston Globe archives to have been an awesome exercise. Check out the following weather forecast from August 14, 1914.

So what's interesting to me? First, as someone who is obsessed with details, it's nice to have. To be honest, if an adventure would work better with different weather, I'd happily use the different weather and get it "wrong". A heatwave instead of the modest temperatures in this forecast wouldn't cause a game to self-destruct.

But what really got my attention was "The Temperature Yesterday at Thompson's Spa. Going through the archives of 1914 it seems every issue gave that as the baseline for the weather. And I found myself wondering "what was Thompson's Spa". Apparently in New England "spa" became used as a soda fountain. The first reference to it seems to be from a Pennsylvania newspaper article in 1895 about Boston - "In Boston, Thompson’s Spa, the greatest soda resort at the Hub, easily clears for its owners 50 thousand dollars a year" (Why Are Some Boston Area Convenience Stores Called Spas?) From some more browsing I've discovered Thompson's Spa was an incredibly popular soda fountain/restaurant. It was also in Newspaper Row, right across the street from the Boston Globe, per this January 2, 1917 Globe article:




These sorts of insights are great for background. The papers are also great inspiration for adventures. Consider the following minor story from the August 14, 1914 Boston Globe. 

I didn't find any follow-up to this. So stolen jewelry? The little article is rife for Mythos implications. Perhaps the jewelry is the type favored by Deep Ones. Or sacred to the King in Yellow. Was the owner aware of their significance? Did he come by it legitimately? Or did he steal it and it was stolen back? I find I like these types of articles, rife for being filled in. 


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