When Phoenix Boys Delivered the Newspapers

By

Gerry Niskern

The Phoenix Newspaper is celebrating 125 years this weekend. Here is a short bio of one of the former paper carriers, Ken Niskern

There is a landmark at 112 N. Central in downtown Phoenix known as the Heard Building. It used to be the location of the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette. The “Fresh Choice” café was located on part of the bottom floor of the Heard later.

Ken, my resident historian, remembers going down to the Heard building on Sunday mornings in the early 1940’s. Along with a couple buddies, he picked up Sunday papers to take out on complaints.   He pedaled his Blue Schwinn down the alley on the north side of the building. The printing presses were located in the basement.  “The lady in charge of skipped deliveries always gave each of us about ten extras papers. We rode over to Five Points intersection and sold them for 25 cents each. It added up,” he recalls.

The West Side of town had four stations; WA, WB, WC.  WD was located down on the curve of Seventeenth Avenue and Buckeye Road. Station WA was located around Eighth Avenue and West Van Buren, beside what was then the Arizona National Guard Headquarters.  He went on to day, “WC, my station was at Twenty-first Avenue and Adams, in front of a Chinese grocery store. If it was raining, whoever got there first dragged the bundles over into the doorway so they wouldn’t get wet. Then we each took turns folding ours in the shelter.”

“Later on we moved to Twentieth Avenue and West Van Buren. I don’t know why we were moved, but I can imagine that a group of kids that age weren’t too quiet. In fact, I recall one mischievous fellow, Cliff Cote, who lived in my neighborhood. In the mornings, he waited until he was a couple blocks from home so that his mother wouldn’t know and then turned on his bicycle siren. It was mounted on the frame and you clicked it into position. A spring held it against the tire. You could hear him all the way down to his station at Seventeenth Avenue and Buckeye Road. One morning a sheriff requested that he remove it.

Our new location was another Chinese store but it had a big canopy out front. Of course, on rainy days there were no plastic sleeves to keep them dry, so we put our jackets over our canvas paper bags. We just figured we could pedal fast enough to go between the raindrops.

I carried around 250 Republic papers in the morning and over 200 Gazettes in the afternoon. My route was Monroe and Adams out to 23^rd Avenue. About 90% of my customers paid by the year. The price was $7.95 for the Republic, including Sunday. The Gazette was 6.95 and both could be ordered for the bargain price of 13.95 per year. I’d say around that 80% of my people took both papers. I don’t remember how much we were paid per paper, but I made around $120 a month, not bad for a kid in the sixth grade. The yearly subscription renewal time was in December. It was a good time for tips! For any kid who wanted to work and wasn’t afraid to get up at 5 A. M. it was a great job because it didn’t interfere with school. I was able to maintain good grades and even trade up every time a new model Schwinn came out.”

Most of those fine old homes around the State Capitol had big porches and the customers insisted their papers be on the porch. “We used to have contests to see who could ‘porch’ a paper the farthest from the sidewalk while pedaling past at full speed.  I could “porch it’ from the sidewalk, a good 30 to 40 feet. Of course, I didn’t realize it probably sounded like a thunder clap in the early morning hours when it hit,” he mused. “And then there was the “Haunted House” on Monroe that we all kind of dreaded riding past. But my biggest worry was a big white bulldog that used to come bouncing out of the dark on 23^rd Avenue at the edge of town.

I was the station manager, no monetary reward, just the prestige of getting to boss the other guys around. Les DeFord was the station manager before that; I understand Les stayed with the paper and retired from the Advertising Dept. Carriers came and went, but I remember working on my station with Doyle Baine, Dick Woods, Chuck Peabody and Jay Brashear.  Jay later became the editor of the editorial page of the Phoenix Gazette.

We had lots of district managers over the years. Some of the names that come to mind are Woods, Westmore and Bagwell. They would reward us once in a while with breakfast or pile us all into their car for a short trip somewhere. We didn’t go far due to gas rationing. One particular district manager that I recall vividly was a fellow by the name of Askew. One morning a car followed him to our station. A man jumped out and stuck a gun in his face and said he was going to teach him a lesson about his driving. The fellow made Mr. Askew drive him around a few blocks. The funny thing is, we all just kept folding our papers and pretty soon, they came back! I guess maybe we figured he needed a driving lesson.”

The boys took their job seriously. “There was a great rivalry among the guys about who could go the longest without getting any “kicks” (complaints.)

I, for one, knew my resident historian was serious about his job back in those days many years ago.  We were in the eighth grade when I took my first ride on the cross bar of that Schwinn.  We started to fall and just as I thought I was going to hit the ground, the bike swooped upright again. I commented on how strong he was and he replied, “Heck, you’re about as heavy as the Sunday papers.”