Journal Front Page – July 14, 1936

Alvin Karpis

Ninety years ago today there were plenty of things of interest on the front page of the July 14, 1936 Lorain Journal.

Lorain was just coming off a heat wave similar to what we experienced a few weeks ago. "The heat wave is now in its 12th day," the lead article noted. It has broken all hot weather duration records.

"The death toll in the nation stood at 2,012, the Ohio toll at 183.

"Monday's highest Lorain reading was 92, the temperature between 4 p. m. and 8 p. m.

"This compared with 101 in Norwalk, and temperatures of over 100 in many other Ohio inland cities."

A story about steel mill workers is pretty surprising. It notes, "It's vacation time in South Lorain – vacation time with pay for employes of the National Tube Co. – and the first paid vacation for wage earners in the history of the plant." As a result, many of them were heading out of town to visit relatives in the cities they lived in before moving to Lorain. "Still others are leaving Lorain via automobile, many just 'driving around,' some camping in tents and others staying in tourist cabins," the article observes.

The big national news was Alvin Karpis, the 'dethroned king of gangland,' pleading guilty to conspiracy in the $100,000 ransom kidnapping of William Hamm, Jr., St. Paul brewer. Karpis would eventually serve twenty-six years at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. 

The Alcatraz History website has a page devoted to Alvin Karpis and his time at "the Rock."

Elsewhere on the front page: an apple gets baked by the sun; a pickpocket strikes in Lorain; a stolen car goes into the drink at Avon Lake; burglars hit a cigar store and a bottling plant in South Lorain; and the City of Lorain was still trying to figure out what to do about replacing the antiquated Erie Avenue swing bridge.