[4] Williams bought McNelley's stake in the paper and subsequently moved operations to Cleveland, Georgia.
[4][6] The Department of Journalism of the University of Oregon reported in 1915 that the newspaper was one of three top country papers in the United States.
[5] Though the newspaper was extremely popular, Townsend was forced to limit his circulation to 1,000 copies, as his hand-cranked press could not keep up with the demand.
[4] Their editorials against keeping chickens and pigs in town upset many of the newspaper's subscribers, and several cancelled their subscriptions.
[4][3] As the debate concerning the care of chickens and pigs in Dahlonega raged, a new column was added to the newspaper called "Both Sides" to handle the complaints the paper received during this time.
[4][5][8] His homespun style of writing recalled the popular editorials of William Benjamin Franklin Townsend and garnered national attention.
[4] Every Wednesday, the Dahlonega Nugget publishes coverage of local sports, news, community events, and business from its hometown.
[1] Its website, which was updated to its current format in 2015, is further categorized into 10 sections, including obituaries, archives, classifieds, and sports.
[7] The newspaper serves the entirety of Lumpkin County as well as the nearby communities of Dawsonville, Murrayville, Suches and Cleveland.
[7] He became the editor and publisher of The Dahlonega Nugget in 1897, when he leased the newspaper's printing equipment with only five dollars in capital, and continued to hold these positions until his death in 1933.
[7] Because Townsend composed his articles in a straightforward manner and rarely deleted the names of the individuals involved in the events he wrote about, he was regularly threatened with libel suits.
[17] Somehow, despite the ever increasing popularity of the paper, Townsend also found time to serve his community as a banker, justice of the peace, constable, mayor, alderman, herb seller, bailiff, tax collector, and city marshal.
[6][18] Townsend would regularly sleep at The Dahlonega Nugget's office, only returning home to see his wife and five children during meals.
[7] Contrary to most other contemporary newspaper editors in Georgia, Townsend believed that it would be impossible to enforce the Volstead Act.