I don’t celebrate my own birthday — gave that up when I grew up and mom stopped giving me money to take all my friends bowling at Dom DeVito’s Lanes, where the bar was off-limits but it still felt cool to put our pop bottles in the same holders meant for beer.
Newspaper birthdays, however, are different, and they’re worth celebrating. Not only because the newspaper is still alive, despite the growth of Facebook, but because the paper’s age is a sign of strength and stamina, unlike my age, which is a sign that I talk more about arthritis with the doctor than I do bowling scores.
The Sentinel turns 119 years old on Saturday. Its first issue was Nov. 20, 1902, under the name Alaska Sentinel. The Stikeen River Journal and Fort Wrangel Journal (that’s the way they spelled them back then) came before the Sentinel, but they didn’t make it to the start of the 20th century.
The town of about 500 people in 1902 had two lawyers, a store that offered free eye exams, a surgeon operating out of the drug store, and a restaurant that advertised “first-class meals” for 25 cents. The first issue of the Sentinel ran a news item on the town’s “Sheet and Pillowcase Ball,” which failed to explain whether people wore pillowcases or wore the sheets — or maybe both — though the Sentinel did report that everyone made it home by midnight).
There were ads in the paper for liver pills, magic syrups and other cures, and a vegetable remedy for the “atmospheric poisons” that cause malaria. Sounds like some of the more unusual social media remedies for COVID-19.
The Wrangell Dairy advertised ice cream “made to order on short notice.” I assume that’s because the dairy couldn’t keep ice cream frozen for very long, so everything was made to order.
The paper also made mention of efforts to provide “the best and most comfortable jail in Alaska.” The story did not explain why. Maybe it was because officials thought it would be good for business, much like the advertising for the town’s first-class tin shop and the grocery that stocked “Heinz famous jellies, pickles and preserves.”
The first issue of the paper included a column by Sentinel founder and owner, A.V.R. Snyder, who wrote: “After two weeks of vexations, waiting for materials, the Alaska Sentinel is able to say ‘howdy’ to the people of Wrangell and all of southeastern Alaska, whose interests it has come to champion, and to ask for public favor, if it shall merit it.”
Snyder further explained the Sentinel’s purpose was to look after the interests of the area. “We make no flaring promises, further than that of making the best news medium possible with the material at hand, and that all subjects and persons will be treated fairly and justly.”
The Sentinel would focus first on news of Wrangell, then Alaska, then “the outside world,” he wrote.
Snyder signed his column, “Yours for business.” Seems a bit too commercial, but he had to pay his bills, too.
Some things have changed in 119 years. The town has no lawyers (that’s OK), stores no longer offer free eye exams or surgeries (probably OK too), and I think all the pillowcases are back on the beds where they belong.
Other things haven’t changed. Wrangell news still comes first, and we will treat everyone fairly.
No need for 119 candles. Save them for the kids. Your decision to read the Sentinel is enough of a gift for us.
Reader Comments(0)