Closing of Herald Examiner Ends Colorful Newspaper Era

The loss of one of our two great metropolitan newspapers is, unfortunately, a sign of our changing times and brings back many memories of the past, particularly the late ‘20s and early ‘30s.

Now that the Herald Examiner has been consigned to the dust bin of history, I look back with fondness to the early days of my life when I used to sell the Los Angeles Examiner. On Saturday nights I would pack 60 or 70 Sunday papers on the back of my bicycle and sell in the area between Edison Junior High School and the Goodyear tire plant on Central Avenue. In a matter of an hour or so I would have them all sold. The next morning I would sell half that many in an area between Florence and Nadeau avenues. (Back then the Sunday edition sold for a dime out of which I would earn 2 cents.)

During the week the Sunday supplements would be sent out to a small storage shack by the Pacific Electric tracks on Florence Avenue, and some of us would go down and “preview” the comics section for the following Sunday. On Saturday afternoon around 4:30 the “fillers” or news sections would arrive on the “Watts local” and we would then finish putting the paper together and be on our way.

There was also a time when I “hustled the sheets” on the corner of Alameda Street and Florence Avenue. Here I was busy selling the Evening Herald and the Los Angeles Evening Record. (Anyone remember this old pink sheet?)

I’ll never forget the day we received a bundle of extras--the day Charles Lindbergh was married, with big black headlines announcing the event. Of course extras always sold well and the newspapers were always looking for an excuse to find a story that would warrant an extra edition such as the results of the Dempsey-Tunney fights; or maybe a hot news item about Aimee Semple McPherson.

Once in a while the Examiner would sponsor a movie for all of its newsboys in one of the downtown screen palaces. On one such occasion we all packed the Orpheum to see a Wheeler and Woolsey comedy called “The Cuckoos.” Another time we were entertained at the Million Dollar where we saw a film entitled “The Crowd.” These were big events in our young lives in one of the most interesting and exciting and not soon to be forgotten periods in the history of Los Angeles. It was fun in those days.

FRANK M. STRICKLIN, Chatsworth