Journal Sign Gets a Paint Job – Oct. 10, 1970

The view this week

Although the Morning Journal is no longer printed at its former facility down at the Devil’s Elbow (or even in Lorain for that matter), its name still adorns one face of the clock tower there. It’s a nice reminder of the days when it was truly a Lorain paper.

As a kid in the 1960s, I used to watch for the Journal paperboy in late afternoon, so I could see what was happening in Li’l Abner, especially if Fearless Fosdick was being featured. 

Isn’t if funny remembering how the paperboy (or papergirl as the case may be) used to come collecting?  Our carrier used to come on Friday night, or Saturday afternoon. The young entrepreneur used to have a little ticket with dates on it for each subscriber, bound on sort of a keychain, and they would punch it after you paid them. I remember a few times having to answer the door and pay & tip the kid if Mom was busy.

It’s too bad those days are long gone – and the era of impersonal delivery via a noisy car (often needing a new muffler) is here to stay.

Anyway, 50 years ago the Journal was still in its plant and thus wanted to leave a good impression on the community. So from time to time the iconic Journal sign needed to be freshened up. And that’s the subject of the photo and caption shown below, which ran in the paper on October 10, 1970.

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I featured photos of the Journal sign before, back here and here, in both cases as part of a Daylight Savings Time story. The photographer even had a little fun with one of the images in those long ago, pre-Photoshop days.