September is fading fast – so I’d better post this front page of the Lorain Journal and Times-Herald from September 7, 1935 – a mere eighty-six years ago this month.
Compared to a typical front page of today’s Morning Journal (which contains two ‘soft’ news stories at most and a huge photo taking up half the page) this one is crammed with news.
What caught my attention at first was the photo of what we know today as Perry’s Victory & International Peace Memorial. It was only twenty years old at that point. Next to the photo of the monument is one of the restored Niagara, Admiral Perry’s flagship that had visited Lorain in 1913.
What’s interesting is that the article accompanying the photo repeats the often told story that Johnny Appleseed (strangely referred to here as Apple Seed Johnny) was listening to the guns firing during the Battle of Lake Erie from some hilltop in Vermilion.
But elsewhere on the Journal front page is the usual Lorain County mayhem: the sad story of a man who murdered his 21-year-old bride in their home on W. 23rd Street in Lorain; a busy night for Lorain’s vice squad resulting in the arrest of eight persons for liquor violations; a tale of vicious dogs on the run in Elyria that killed three lambs, one sow and two geese as well as injuring some goats; a fire in an Elyria chemical factory.
The grisly headline BURN BODIES OF GALE VICTIMS refers to the decision to burn the bodies of the victims of what is today referred to as the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane in the Florida Keys. It’s a horrible, sad story with hundreds of deaths, a majority of whom were veterans that were staying in work camps while working on the construction of the Overseas Highway.
I think I prefer two soft stories and a big photo to "Burn Bodies of Gale Victims" and wild dogs run amok.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Lorain was a wild town even back then with that murder on West 23rd St.
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