We'll kick off the month of April here on the blog with a look back at the front page of the Lorain Journal of April 1, 1953.
Of course, the big story is the freighter Paul H. Brown running aground at Lakeview Park. As the photo caption notes, "The lake freighter Paul H, Brown, anxious to get into Lorain harbor, missed the breakwater entrance by a mile in last night's fog and made a one-point landing near the refreshment stand at Lakeview Park. Efforts to remove the intruder from the park were proceeding smoothly this afternoon."
Other items on the same page include: A committee of church, fraternal and veterans' organizations was formed by Mayor John Jaworski to create the rules "under which bingo will be permitted in Lorain," including maximum limits on prize money; PFC Ronald Morris was the 10th Lorain man to die in action in Korea; President Eisenhower signed an executive order eliminating civil service protection for hundreds of government officials appointed by Presidents Roosevelt and Truman to allow the new incoming department heads to fill key positions with their own choices; and a story of a colorful Lorain character, Conrad Horn, smoking his pipe during his hospitalization at St. Joseph Hospital.
All that and a small article noting that it was only a little less than a week before Bike Tag Day. That's when the auditor' office was going to begin selling bicycle tags, which had to be on bikes by May 1 or they would be impounded.
****
Three days later, the "Log of Lorain" column included this news nugget: "The Log is still hearing about people fooled by The Journal's April Fool's Day picture of the lake freighter grounded at Lakeview Park. We heard about one man who saw the picture, called his wife and told her to get ready, picked her up and drove to Lakeview Park to see the wreck.
""I felt pretty foolish when I got there and realized it was a gag," he said. "But I wasn't alone. There was a crowd of 50 other persons there ahead of me.""
