Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Santa Makes the Front Page of the Lorain Journal – Dec. 9, 1926


If you ever had any doubt about the existence of Santa Claus, this portion of the front page of the December 9, 1926 Lorain Journal –  published 88 years ago yesterday – might convince you otherwise.

Right there on the front page, the paper included a large photo of the beloved icon, with this caption: "Our photographer journeyed all way to Arctic to get exclusive pictures of Santa Claus. The closeup of most popular old gentleman in world, shows he is in good health and ready for a busy Christmas."

The photo is credited to Underwood and Underwood, pioneers in the field of news bureau photography according to this Wiki page.

Anyway, as usual – the other items on the front page are just as interesting as the item being spotlighted. There's a grisly murder in Conneaut (that in the article is compared to a notorious murder earlier that year in Troy, Ohio), as well as a humorous account of paying a traffic ticket "cafeteria-style" in Elyria.

But what about the article with the title, "SHEP DRINKS NITRO; BOOM! IT'S ALL OVER"?

All right (sigh), here it is. It took place on an oil field in Irvine, Kentucky. A dog drank about a pint of nitroglycerin. The oil men tried, but were unable to catch him. So the workers cleared out of the area, and the owner of the dog (fearing that he would come home, I guess) removed his wife and ten children from their home.

The dog ended up chasing a rabbit over a fifty foot precipice. He fell and…well, you know the rest.

They should have erected a monument to that rabbit.

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