Well, a major winter storm is predicted for the Midwest later this week, which is unusual for our area before Christmas. So it's a good time to look back at two memorable December snowstorms: one in 1962 and the other in 1972.
Below is the front page of the December 6, 1962 Journal.
"Motorists who left their homes Thursday during the early evening found themselves faced with a driver's nightmare upon returning home just a few hours later. Every street and intersection in the area was clogged with stalled and abandoned autos left behind by grumbling, disgruntled motorists.
"Countians who journeyed into Cleveland were forced to spend the night there almost by police order. Traffic became so snarled in Cleveland that the police urged motorists to check into hotels or spend the night in their cars, rather than add to the crippling traffic jam."
Another front page article noted that "virtually all industries in Lorain County were shut down today because the heavy snow kept thousands of workers from getting to their jobs.
"The giant National Tube Division, Lorain Works, was forced to keep workers on the job overtime in the hot ends where continuous operation is a vital necessity."
All of the schools in Lorain, Huron, Erie and Cuyahoga counties were closed, with the exception of the nursing schools.
Ten years later, the area was hit with a winter storm that was more bone-chilling than one to require a lot of shoveling. Here's the front page of the December 16, 1972 Journal.
As the story explains, "Weathermen were predicting area temperatures could plunge as low as zero tonight.
"There was a chance of snow flurries in the northern part of the state after a snowstorm left up to half a foot of snow.
"In Lorain, Erie and Huron counties today, several inches of snow coated the ground – leading to slick roads and accidents in many places.
"In Cleveland, where more than six inches of snow fell yesterday, city streets were still slippery although traffic was light and few problems were reported."
At Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, a jumbo jetliner skidded on a snow-covered runway, with no injuries.
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It's interesting comparing the two front pages. While they both contain several stories, the trend of less articles and bigger photos (to eat up space) was already in motion by 1972.
At least both of them had Today's Chuckle.
4 comments:
I lived next door to the cotton family when the little girl was shot in the face. It was from a BB gun. I still have no idea why a three year old would be out in the woods playing, but those were the times.
The trend of newspapers de-emphasizing news continues. Today's Plain Dealer has three stories on Page 1. The Journal front page of 1962 may have more news in it than the entire PD today.
I see Lorain Police Chief John Malinovsky was hard at work trying to catch snowmobilers.A few years later he would be hard at work getting himself charged in a four count indictment consisting of:1)extortion,2)perjury,3)obstructing official business and 4) interfering with civil rights.It all stemmed from threats Malinovsky made to certain Lorain fire inspectors.Seams he wanted them to look the other way for fire code violations at his daughters bingo parlor.Malinovsky had the equally corrupt Lorain Police detective Sergeant Wayne Long threaten the fire inspectors with criminal conduct if they wouldn't overlook the violations.In the end the court errored as it wouldn't allow Long's statements to be admitted as evidence,even though they were part of the crime.Malinovsky got off when the trial court ruled all of the evidence as inadmissible.But the damage to Malinovskys reputation was done and he didn't get his as wished for acquittal.
Interesting about Police Chief Malinovsky. Thanks for posting.
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