Note: This history marks the longest entry to date on HistoricDetroit.org. We have put the history of the building pictured here up front and moved the lengthy history of the Detroit Journal leading up to its construction - including the deadly 1895 building explosion - beneath it. It’s not the best presentation of a fascinating story, but as this was the final home of the Journal, we didn’t want the information on this building to be completely buried for those seeking knowledge about only the building in question.
The Detroit Journal may not have lasted as long as its rivals, but the newspaper still left a mark on the city, including its role in the deadliest explosion in Detroit’s nearly 325-year history.
This handsome building was the last of the Journal’s many homes during its 39-year run, and stood on the southwest corner of West Fort and what is now Washington Boulevard. The land had once been part of the old Fort Lernoult/Fort Shelby that dated back to the city’s earliest days.
All the news building fit to print
Construction on the five-story structure, designed by architect John W. Case, started May 20, 1907. It cost about $100,000 to build, the equivalent of about $3.4 million in 2024 valuation. Prominent Detroit firm Smith, Hinchman & Grylls served as engineers on the project.
This new building was tacked onto the front of the Journal’s existing home, which had once been the old First Congregational Church and built in 1854. That building had been partially destroyed in a fire in 1900 (more on that below). The rear section of the building was rebuilt and reoccupied by the Journal after the fire. Because the news never stops, even for construction, the Journal continued to occupy its existing building as the new structure rose along Fort Street. Reporters used a new entrance to the old building while work progressed.
"As first planned, the building was to have been less pretentious than the structure now under way," the Detroit Free Press wrote the morning after work started, "but the rapid growth of the city and of the business of the newspaper caused the owners to decide upon the larger and more complete building."
The lower part of the new Detroit Journal Building was made of Bedford stone, with white enameled terra cotta the rest of the way up. The roof was tiled. Its arcaded entrance featured a gilded coffered ceiling with a mosaic landing. Large windows gave a full view of the press room in the basement, where three massive Hoe printing presses could spit out 48,000 papers an hour each. Elsewhere, the building had interior fittings of mahogany.
The Free Press heralded its rival's new home as an "ornament to Fort Street West" in its May 21, 1907, edition. The Detroit News (1917), Free Press (1925), and Detroit Times (1929) would not get new buildings of their own until years after the Journal did.
The new Journal Building was opened to the public for a housewarming of sorts on Oct. 14, 1908, in an event that also marked the paper's 25th anniversary.
The Flint (Mich.) Daily Journal wrote the day of the event that "by formally opening its handsome new home today, the Detroit Journal gives substantial evidence of prosperity and advancement. ... To have reached the quarter-century post in its career with renewed evidences of growth and with the respect of the community in which it is published and the field in which it circulates, makes this notable event a most happy occasion. The Journal is a worthy force in the development and improvement of the state, and as such, deserves all the success which it has attained."
The Adrian (Mich.) Daily Telegram added Oct. 17, 1908, that "The Journal's success is well-earned, and its new home is in keeping with the high journalistic standard that it has so long maintained."
Even the Charlevoix County (Mich.) Herald - located more than 250 miles north of Detroit - published a story about the building’s opening. It proclaimed in its Nov. 7, 1908, edition that "the new building of the Detroit Journal is the most artistic in the whole business district of Detroit."
Folded paper
While it would survive a series of disasters, the Journal couldn't survive its competition.
The Journal would continue to publish from this stately journalism palace for the next 14 years, until it was bought out by one of its rivals in the evening paper game, The Detroit News. Its final date of publication was July 21, 1922, and the Journal was consolidated with the News starting with the following day's edition. Some of its reporters caught on with The News; others went to the Free Press or Detroit Times. But the purchase was more about buying out the competition than acquiring the Journal’s reporters or assets.
"The sale of the Journal created considerable surprise in business circles, although not unexpected by newspapermen," the Free Press wrote July 22, 1922. "The deal came as a surprise also to the employees of the Journal. Reporters and editorial men went to work as usual Friday morning, and few of them knew of the sale of the paper until the first edition appeared containing the notice of the sale."
The purchase price was not disclosed at the time, but it later came to light that the price tag was $1.4 million, the equivalent of $26.5 million in 2024 valuation, when adjusted for inflation.
News of the sale was published in newspapers from Tuscon, Ariz., to Salt Lake City to Bismarck, N.D. The New York Times called The News’ purchase of the Journal "one of the largest newspaper deals ever concluded in the Middle West."
The folding of the Journal left Detroit with two evening newspapers, The News and the Times. The Free Press was the city’s only morning paper at the time. Thirty-eight years later, The News would buy out the Times, too, on Nov. 7, 1960.
The post-Journal years
Following the paper's dissolution, the Detroit Stock Exchange Co. bought the building in 1922, moving in a year later and renaming it the Stock Exchange Building. The Whitley Co., a real estate firm, was also a tenant, occupying space on the building's third floor.
In 1923, the Frischkorn Real Estate Co. and its subsidiaries moved into the building. At the time, those business interests included the Frischkorn Avenue Development Co., Frischkorn Land Co. and the Title & Trust Co. The latter started off purely as a financing arm for Frischkorn-built or -sold properties, but expanded its services to all borrowers in 1925.
In early May 1925, the Frischkorns bought the Stock Exchange Building for $500,000 - or about $9.2 million in 2025 - and announced that they would tear it down and erect a 25-story office building in its place that would serve "as a monument to their 12 years of industry," The Detroit News reported May 10, 1925. These plans called for the new skyscraper to be called the Title & Trust Building and house all of the Frischkorns' business interests, as well as a bank on the ground floor. The rest of the building was to be rented as office space.
"We have advocated 'build your own home' for years, and we intend to practice what we preach," Ephraim Smith “E.S.” Frischkorn Jr., the real estate company’s president, told The News at the time of the new skyscraper’s announcement.
The skyscraper plan would not end up happening, with the Frischkorns opting to go the cheaper route by keeping the former Journal Building and bestowing the Title & Trust Building name on it instead. The Title & Trust Co. took over the structure’s ground floor.
Perhaps motivated by their new landlords’ plans to knock down the building, the stock exchange moved out Feb. 4, 1927, taking quarters on the 23rd floor of the Penobscot Annex.
Frischkorn, Fiskhorn, Fishkorn
E.S. Frischkorn arrived in Detroit from Pennsylvania around 1913 with $500 (about $16,500 in 2025) in his pocket and a dream to make it in the real estate business. He opened an office in the Equity Building and started pursuing his passion of building subdivisions. His younger brothers George M. and Charles R. joined him two years later, and by the time they bought the former Detroit Journal Building in 1925, the three were worth $8 million - the equivalent of about $148 million in 2025.
The Frischkorn brothers would build more than 7,000 homes across hundreds of acres of land on Detroit's west side and in Redford Township. One of those neighborhoods was named Frischkorn in honor of its developer. However, by the early 2000s, the neighborhood was going by Fiskhorn (and sometimes Fishkorn), a misspelling of the name. The company also developed the Evergreen Village, Highlands, Parkway Heights and Golf Heights communities.
"Detroit is not going to be a city of tenement houses," the company correctly predicted in a Dec. 7, 1924, article in the Detroit Free Press about its Grand-Dale development between Southfield Freeway and Greenfield Road and Interstate-96 and West Chicago Boulevard. (The neighborhood is now spelled as Grandale.) “The year 1925 will be a banner year under the slogan of 'Own your own home.’”
In 1929, an office in the Title & Trust Building served as former Mayor John W. Smith's campaign headquarters as he sought to once again lead the city. (Smith lost to Charles Bowles, who would become the first Detroit mayor to ever be recalled.) Around that time, the building also housed the Veterans' Political Association and the headquarters of the Aural Guild, an association for the hard of hearing that had 200 members in 1938 and offered lip-reading classes at the building.
However, a petition was filed Dec. 28, 1931, to dissolve the Frischkorn Real Estate Co., and a receiver was appointed. Crushed by the Depression, the company cited liabilities of nearly $2 million, the equivalent of about $43.8 million in 2025 valuation. The Frischkorns would re-emerge as the Frischkorn Brothers Real Estate Co., but would be mired in suits from investors and creditors for years to come.
Troubled times
On March 4, 1941, the City of Detroit became the owner of the building after it foreclosed upon it for $57,200 in delinquent taxes, the equivalent of about $1.3 million in 2025 valuation. The last owner of record was the Greenfield Development Co., which was likely tied to the Frischkorns’ post-bankruptcy restructuring given Greenfield Road’s proximity to many of their developments and the fact that the Frischkorns were still based out of the building, but that is unclear.
On the night of Oct. 6, 1941, fire - the Detroit Journal’s old nemesis - returned. This time, the blaze was discovered near the top of an elevator shaft by night watchman Anthony Major. The roof was heavily damaged, and a number of offices were ruined by water and falling debris. Damage to the City-owned building was estimated at $2,000, about $42,000 in 2025 valuation. The fire was likely caused by defective wiring.
A few months later, on Jan. 17, 1942, Frischkorn announced that it had moved out of the Title & Trust Building and into the Dime Building. Despite its recent financial woes, the company cited a need for larger quarters.
With a City-owned building filled with unused space, Mayor Edward Jeffries’ administration looked to fill it until a buyer could be found. In February 1944, Jeffries' newly established Racial Relations Committee was given space in the building, as was the Recorder's Court Jury Commission.
The City finally found a buyer in January 1945, A. Binkow, an operator of parking garages in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and New York. Though that might have seemed like a death knell for the building, it continued to operate for a few years. This could have been because Binkow was waiting for leases to expire; it could have been because he was amassing capital needed to raze the building and erect a new parking structure.
The Wayne Fort Grill inside the building was destroyed by fire on Dec. 14, 1947. Finally, on Sept. 4, 1948, the real estate firm Schostak Brothers & Co. announced that Binkow would demolish the Title & Trust Building to make way for a four-story ramp-type parking deck that could fit more than 300 cars. The architectural gem once called an ornament of Fort Street began coming down that month.
On April 25, 1949, a building permit was pulled for the garage, which was to feature four storefronts along West Fort Street. The $165,000 project - worth about $2.2 million in 2025 value - was commissioned by the Fort Corner Wayne Realty Co.
But this new parking deck wouldn’t last long. Just 18 years later, on Aug. 2, 1967, a demolition permit for that parking deck was pulled. The site was cleared for the Fort Washington Plaza at 333 W. Fort St., designed by Louis Redstone and opened in 1969. Today, the former location of the Journal Building is now occupied by the Fort Washington Plaza's parking garage.
The history of the Detroit Journal
What was originally called the Detroit Evening Journal was founded by editor-in-chief J. Lloyd Brezee and business manager Cyrus C. Packard in 1883. It is not to be confused with several other Detroit papers that had “journal” in their names.
The Detroit Free Press reported July 14, 1883, that "Brezee's evening paper scheme is said to have nearly come to fruit. ... The plan is to start a 2-cent evening paper, clean in tone and snappy in matter, in opposition to The (Detroit) News, whose unblushing filthiness, say the promoters of the scheme, has peculiarly enriched the soil for another journalistic plant. ... The reportorial staff will be sufficiently numerous and of the 'git thar' sort to make extremely lively hustling."
In August 1883, the Journal leased a portion of the Arcade Building, which was built in 1866 at what was then-48 W. Larned St., on the north side of Larned between Griswold and Shelby streets (After the city’s entire street grid was renumbered in 1920, it would have stood at present-day 158 W. Larned St.). The building, erected and designed by former City Treasurer Allen A. Rabineau in 1866, was said to have been stunning. No photos of the building are known to exist.
At first, the Journal was cash-strapped, with just $3,200 in starting capital - the equivalent of about $110,000 in 2024, when adjusted for inflation. This meant the paper’s founders would have to rely on determination and creative business strategy. For instance, before the Journal had even published its first issue, the paper chartered the new passenger steamer Sappho to give the city's newsboys a joyride and ply them with ice cream in hopes of getting them to include the Journal among their offerings.
The Journal hit newsstands for the first time on Sept. 1, 1883, for 2 cents. The paper was published daily and quickly gained a decent following, allowing for it to issue stock on Dec. 6, 1883, and raise $37,500, about $1.3 million in 2024 valuation. Its largest shareholder was businessman Jesse H. Farwell of Farwell Building fame.
The Detroit Evening Journal Co.’s articles of association were filed in the County Clerk's office on May 27, 1884. By that September, just a year after its launch, the Journal had outgrown the Arcade Building and moved into larger quarters at what was then 40 W. Congress (present-day 148 W. Congress). This would prove fortuitous, as the Arcade Building would burn to the ground on Dec. 27, 1897, damaging the Free Press’ home at the time next door.
By the end of its first year, the Journal boasted a circulation of nearly 16,000. Given that the city had a population of about 132,000 people in 1884, that meant roughly 12 percent of Detroiters read the Journal. (We say roughly because the population is an estimate between censuses and the population figure would include children.) Yet, the Journal was still struggling financially, as its attempts to build an audience meant increased spending, which was on top of the costs of buying equipment and hiring reporters, let alone building out larger and larger offices. This would play a major factor in the next chapter of the Journal’s story.
The Fox News of its day
When the Journal was started, an agreement was made between its shareholders not to align it with any political party. That was soon thrown out the window, however, and the paper would develop a reputation as being a mouthpiece for the Republican Party.
Amid the Journal’s financial woes, Republican U.S. Sen. Thomas W. Palmer (best known for donating land to the City that became Palmer Park) stepped in to invest a hefty, yet undisclosed, amount of money in 1886 to keep the paper running. In exchange for his investment, Detroit would continue to have a paper aligned with his views and offer a slant on news coverage matching his political party’s talking points, such as articles painting tariffs in a positive light. This sort of arrangement was not unique, as in the 19th century, politicians often financially supported, or even owned, newspapers as a way to get their messaging out or, in the most extreme cases, to use as propaganda machines.
Nor was this pro-Republican tone new for the Journal. After all, Palmer agreed to bail out the paper for a reason. Indeed, in 1912, The New York Times described the Journal as the longtime “leading Republican organ of Michigan."
The Journal even advertised itself as being "the only metropolitan Republican newspaper in Detroit and Michigan." The Ionia (Mich.) Standard, on the other hand, called the Detroit Journal a “retailer of high tariff and low garbage, and a fraud in pretending to be independent while grinding out smut for the Republican machine."
That slam came in response to the Journal's decision to publish stories in 1884 about a scandal involving Democratic presidential candidate Grover Cleveland. That July, the Buffalo Evening Telegraph had reported salacious allegations that, 10 years earlier, Cleveland had raped a woman and gotten her pregnant, going to such lengths to have her committed to a mental institution in an attempt to cover it up. The boy was then put up for adoption. It would be shocking stuff today; it was beyond shocking in 1884. At the time, many called it a shameless, “fake news” attempt to destroy his campaign, though Cleveland won anyway, and again in 1892.
The thing is, though, the appalling story about Cleveland has since come to be accepted as mostly true. You can read more about the scandal here.
Publishing stories on the Cleveland scandal also led Farwell, a supporter of Cleveland’s bid for the White House, to sell his shares in the Journal to one of Brezee’s arch-nemeses, which led to a battle for control of the newsroom, which led to lawsuits, court injunctions and other legal matters that are too complicated and lengthy to get into here. The key takeaway around Farwell’s decision is that it eventually led to the paper being auctioned off, with the winning bid going to Detroit businessman William Livingstone Jr. and (somewhat silently) then-former Sen. Palmer on Feb. 20, 1892, for $45,000, the equivalent of about $1.6 million in 2024 valuation.
The Journal being acquired by a wealthy Detroit luminary such as Livingstone not only gave the paper more stable finances but more credibility. Livingstone would run the paper for nearly a decade.
Under new ownership
Livingstone was the son of a prominent businessman who made his fortune in the shipping industry. The younger Livingstone came to Detroit from Ontario, Canada, when he was 4 years old and became a first-rate machinist and locomotive engineer. He soon was put in charge of the repair shops of an Ohio railroad before deciding to swap the rails for the waves, following his father into the maritime business. He would go on to become president of the Lake Carriers Association. His biggest achievement was the creation of a deep water channel in the Detroit River, allowing for larger freighters, a bigger maritime economy and a more booming industry. The channel is still known as the Livingstone Channel. For his dedication to the advancement of Great Lakes shipping over six decades, the William Livingstone Memorial Light on Belle Isle was named in his honor. He was also president of Dime Savings Bank.
Livingstone was an ardent member of the GOP, so he had a clear interest in acquiring the Journal. In 1875, he had been elected to the state Legislature as a Republican representing Detroit. During Republican President Chester A. Arthur's administration, he was appointed U.S. collector of Customs at Detroit. He also served as chairman of the executive committee of the Republican state central committee and chairman of the Michigan delegation at the national party’s convention in 1896 (while he was running the Journal, which shows papers at that time weren’t concerned with putting forth even a perceived image of being unbiased).
Incidentally, Livingstone was such good buddies with Palmer, he named his son Thomas Witherell Palmer Livingstone.
After Livingstone’s death at age 81 on Oct. 17, 1925, the Detroit Free Press wrote the following morning that, "next to Henry Ford, he was probably the most widely known man in Detroit. … As banker, vessel owner, newspaper publisher and member of the state Legislature, Livingstone's name is linked closely with the commercial, financial and political history of Detroit and Michigan over the last half century."
Detroit’s deadliest disaster
In March 1892, with the Journal having outgrown its quarters at 40 W. Congress, Livingstone went out and got his new charge a new home, a five-story, 87-foot-tall building at what was then 45 and 47 W. Larned, at Shelby Street. Those addresses no longer exist as they are under the footprint of the 150 W. Jefferson building, but they would be present-day 155 and 157 W. Larned. The Journal’s new home would help the intersection of Larned and Shelby to be called Newspaper Row. The Journal was on the southeast corner; the Free Press was then across the street on the northeast; and The News was on the northwest.
The building was leased from the Newberry estate, a wealthy and prominent Detroit family tied to everything from the founding of Grace Hospital to running the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co. and Detroit Dry Dock Co. to representing Michigan in the U.S. Senate.
Work began March 30, 1892, on outfitting the structure for the newspaper's needs, "and when completed," the Free Press wrote that morning, "Mr. Livingstone expects to have one of the best equipped newspaper offices between New York and Chicago."
The Journal moved into its new home on May 30, 1892 - though it would not call it home for long.
It was a particularly busy morning on Newspaper Row on Nov. 6, 1895. It was the day after Detroit's mayoral election, when voters had given Hazen S. Pingree another term, and newsboys had been lining up to get their papers.
A few minutes before 9 a.m., a massive explosion ripped through the Journal Building, causing it to collapse into a heap of shattered stone and twisted steel. The sound of the blast was heard across the city, and windows exploded as buildings along Newspaper Row were said to have swayed. Bricks and debris rained down onto the street.
"A quick, heavy explosion like a broadside from heavy ordinance - then came the roaring, rumbling, swaying of an earthquake," read the Journal's special edition on the disaster. "The floors rose in billows, desks hopped about, typewriters moved off desks, glass cracked and whirled across the room, plaster fell and walls quaked."
In the end, 37 people were killed and 50 others were injured. The Detroit Journal disaster represents the single largest loss of life in the city’s more than 320-year history. (The death toll from the unrest of 1967 occurred over several days.) Had the explosion happened an hour or so earlier, when folks were on their way into work, the blast would have killed more.
"Men and women were hurled into eternity without an instant's warning," the Free Press reported the following morning. "The catastrophe was undoubtedly the most horrible one that has ever cast a gloom over the city of Detroit. It came with such suddenness, with such terror and with such overwhelming force that the extent and full scope of the accident can even yet scarcely be estimated."
Journal stereotyper Arthur D. Lynch had been under a 400-pound steam table on the building’s fifth floor, adjusting the steam to get more heat. It was the luckiest decision of his life. As the Journal exploded, the stereotyping department was carried down five floors to the basement. Lynch miraculously survived, having been sheltered by the table from the falling bricks and beams.
Some 300 men were assembled to search for survivors and cart away debris. Among the victims were a number of boys in the mailroom on the first floor and young women who were employees of Hiller’s book-binding company and a typesetting firm in the same building.
"The building was only a tangled and intricate mass of twisted iron, heaps of stone and piles of broken bricks,” the Free Press wrote. “There was not the minutest opportunity for escape, and all were hurled or heaved into the air with the ruins, only to fall back into their terrible tomb. … Soon the cries became weaker, then they died out, and nothing was left but the fire and water."
Detroit’s firefighters were posed with a terrible predicament: If they poured water onto the ruins to quench the flames, they risked drowning survivors trapped by the debris in the crater where the building once stood. At the same time, if the flames weren’t doused, those trapped in the rubble might be burned alive or killed by smoke inhalation.
"The piteous wails of the unfortunate mortals who were fastened in the debris, caught between rafters, lumber or pipes, nerved men to herculean work,” the Free Press wrote, noting that workers searched for victims all night.
Pingree arrived on the scene, "his face gray, his triumph at the polls forgotten," Don Lochbiler wrote in the Detroit News on March 19, 1973. Pingree ordered a temporary morgue be set up in the nearby Michigan Exchange Building so that relatives could try to identify the bodies of their loved ones.
"As a rule, the bodies were so crushed, burned and blackened that they could be recognized only by their clothing or some ornament," the Free Press wrote. The family of 19-year-old victim John Reuter was able to identify him only by the shoes he was wearing.
Amid the sorrow, newspaper accounts described undertaker Frank Gibbs greedily plucking bodies from the rubble to ensure he'd get the business and accused undertakers of trying to stuff victims into coffins when they were still alive. Gibbs sued but would find no sympathy. The case concluded May 27, 1896, with the jury awarding him only 12 cents - 6 cents for damages to Gibbs' business and 6 more for "injuries to his feelings by the publication." That would be worth $4.60 in 2024 value.
The cause
The disaster was caused by low water levels in the building’s massive boiler, which led to intense pressure to build until it exploded. The building's engineer, Thomas M. Thompson, was away from his post, and was arrested and charged with manslaughter for negligence in allowing the building's boilers to go dry.
Thompson was convicted, but the verdict was set aside when he appealed to the State Supreme Court, which said in its decision that "a boiler does not burst because of the absence of the engineer."
In what must have been either a case of oversight or a disgusting attempt to cash in on the disaster, the Free Press’ coverage of the explosion the next morning ran next to an advertisement for the Fidelity and Casualty Co. of New York that read, “Insures (sic) steam boilers against explosion, collapse or rupture. A boiler is dangerous if not properly cared for. Take every precaution."
The job must go on
The reporters in the Journal’s newsroom had been saved by a thick brick wall that separated their department from the rest of the paper's staff and the root of the blast. Not realizing it was his own paper's building that had suffered the explosion, the Journal's city editor assigned two reporters to go check on the commotion.
The Detroit News, Tribune and Free Press all offered their offices and printing plants to the Journal so that it could publish a special edition on the explosion. It would be printed at the Free Press.
The Journal opened a temporary business office at 34 Fort St. (present-day 118 Fort St.), adjoining the Peninsular Bank Building. The editorial department took space in the McGraw Building at Lafayette Boulevard and Griswold Street.
While journalists often think of themselves as doing the lord's work, an often thankless but necessary job, the Journal's staff would soon be working in a former house of the lord.
The paper, needing more suitable facilities and a longer-term home, agreed to take over an old church on the southwestern corner of Fort Street and Wayne Boulevard (today known as Washington Boulevard). The structure was dedicated in 1854 as the First Congregational Church, but had sat largely vacant since worshippers moved to Woodward and Forest avenue in 1891. The paper would spend $10,000 in fitting out the old church for the new purpose of publishing and printing newspapers, which translates to about $383,000 in 2024 valuation.
It would not be long, however, before tragedy would strike the Journal yet again.
Another home, another disaster
On the morning of July 1, 1900, for the second time in five years, the newspaper's home was destroyed, this time by a three-alarm fire. This time, no lives would be lost.
By the time the fire department arrived, the fire was sweeping toward the front of the building, fueled in part by a skylight that allowed the wind to blow the flames forward toward the front of the building.
"The blaze was of short duration, owing to the great volume of water poured in by the fire department, but while it continued in force (it) was very disastrous, and when it had completely died out, only a skeleton of the main building remained," the Free Press wrote the following morning. The roof and part of the second floor quickly collapsed. Given the building's age, it lacked the modern fireproofing advances and had a wooden support structure.
A water tower was quickly erected at the building's main entrance on Fort Street, and "this great stream was also poured into the building, and the drowning process soon had a telling effect," the Free Press wrote. "Water came rushing down the stairways and developed into a miniature falls as it came through the main entrance and down the broad stone stairs on Fort Street."
A little less than two hours later, the blaze was quenched. "So hot was the blaze that the lead in the forms (molds for letters used for the articles) melted and ran off while only the wasted brasses remained," the Free Press reported July 2, 1900.
The editorial rooms, library, composing rooms and stereotyping room were destroyed, including 10 typesetting machines valued at $30,000 (about $1.1 million in 2024 value). Luckily, the two printing presses suffered only minor water damage and could be put back in running order. The loss, all in, was estimated at between $50,000 and $75,000 ($1.9 million to $2.9 million in 2024).
It was clear that the fire started in the stereotyping department, but what wasn't clear is what sparked it. An hour before the fire broke out, stereotyping staffers were melting lead used to form the raised metal plates used for printing. It is possible the fire started after the workers left, a flame left unextinguished. Another theory blamed faulty wiring.
"Whether caused by an electric light wire or the result of carelessness on the part of some employees is not known, and will probably always remain a secret," the Detroit Free Press wrote the morning after the fire.
News of this second fire was published in papers from Dallas to Sioux City, Iowa to Trenton, N.J.
Just like before, the Journal’s journalists didn’t let disaster get in the way of publishing. "Cannot stop 'em: Detroit Journal came out on time today despite yesterday's fire," the News wrote the evening after the blaze.
Architect Zachariah Rice of the firm Mason & Rice was brought in to evaluate whether the building could be spared. He found that, though the roof was gone and the tower was as good as gone, the old walls of First Congregational held steady and was deemed salvageable.
The New York Times published an article the following day that said, "Contracts will be let at once for rebuilding the badly damaged structure, and new typesetting, stereotyping and other machinery has been telegraphed for."
A two-story, vacant brick building across from the ruins was leased to serve as offices for the counting room and advertising department, as well as some of the reporters, until its home could be rebuilt. The printing presses of the Free Press were borrowed in the interim. The morning after the blaze, a force of men carried desks and soaked papers and books from the old building across the street to their temporary home.
Seven years after the fire, work started on a new building to be erected in front of the former church structure. As noted above, it would open Oct. 14, 1908.
‘-30-’ for the Journal
Perhaps burned out from the two Journal fires, or perhaps just wanting to focus on his many other interests, Livingstone retired from the Journal in June 1901.
In 1908, Edward D. Stair, who two years earlier had bought the Free Press with Philip H. McMillian (whose family owned the building in the Journal disaster of 1895), bought the majority of the Journal’s stock along with Henry Stevens and took over. He would lead both newspapers until selling the Journal in 1917 to a group of four businessmen, N.C. Wright and H.S. Talmadge of Detroit and Paul Block and C.C. Vernam of New York. Stair said he sold the Journal because he didn't want it to conflict with his ownership of the Free Press.
The four men owned the Journal until, as noted above, they sold the paper to the rival Detroit News on July 21, 1922.
Legends of the Journal
In the decades where newspapers were far more read and trusted than they are today, many reporters and editors of the publications were household names around Detroit.
Jan Schmedding was the Journal’s star crime reporter, "a criminologist of renown, but no gentleman when it came to journalists of the opposition," veteran journalist Malcolm Bingay recalled in a Jan. 9, 1942, column in the Free Press. Schmedding was born in Amsterdam, and worked for papers in Germany, Paris and London before arriving in Detroit in 1887, when he started writing for the German language Abend Post. Schmedding "was known to practically every man in Detroit who has been in official life during his time as a newspaper man," the Detroit Free Press wrote May 8, 1913, as well as a many in the city’s immigrant community because he could speak not only English but German, French, Dutch, Hebrew, Spanish and Italian.
After he died at age 50 of tuberculosis on May 7, 1913, reporters and editors of five daily newspapers and his former co-workers gathered to honor him at the Cadillac Hotel. The group created a resolution to be presented to Schmedding's family at his funeral that read: "Jan Schmedding, for 25 years one of the most industrious, versatile and brilliant reporters the Detroit newspaper profession has ever known. ... Mr. Schmedding's career here represented the best spirit of enterprising American journalism. … In him were united the eruditions of a scholar, the manners and feelings of a gentleman, the fraternal and friendly instincts of a comrade, the patience, shrewdness, perseverance and industry of a trained investigator, and he brought the results of his labors before the public in a style which was finished, artistic and vivid."
Other star Journal journalists included Harry P. Hetherington, Karl W. Harriman, Fred Van Fleet, Arthur E. Gordon, Kirland Alexander, Guy Ingalls and Fred Nash.
Thomas May, however, may have been the best known of them all, and "became one of the outstanding cartoonists of his time because in addition to his artistic skill and his native wit, he had the gift for friendship in singularly high degree," the Free Press wrote Dec. 5, 1927. “May’s cartoons provoked interest by their keen humor or satire (and) many of his drawings have remained conspicuous in the life of the city.”
He was employed at Parke-Davis Co. when his sketches attracted attention and resulted in him being hired by the Detroit Journal, where he would spend some 25 years of his life. His caricatures of Mayor Pingree “stirred much comment,” the Free Press added. His work would be reproduced in publications across the country, including the Literary Digest and the Review of Reviews.
May was considered a pioneer of editorial cartoons, but his best known work would lead to happier holidays for countless children across the metro area for nearly a century after it was first published. The cartoon was titled “Forgotten,” depicting a poor child alone, hungry and without presents at Christmas.
The inspiration was a “little child … too young to understand the why, too young to be in any way responsible, with all the yearnings of a childish heart, with all the patient waiting for Santa, and the day had passed without a single present,” May recalled in 1923. His editor, H.P. Hetherington “winced when he saw it, and I knew the picture rang true. He said, ‘We can’t use that, Tom; that would spoil Christmas for a lot of people.’ I thanked him for his unconscious compliment, and told him I wanted to spoil Christmas for every man and woman in Detroit who had remembered only themselves.”
The picture “brought to its creator commendation from all parts of the world, the Free Press wrote Dec. 4, 1927, but it also inspired the founding of the Goodfellows, an organization dedicated to bringing Christmas cheer to children in low-income families.
After leaving the Journal, May went to the Detroit Times, but failing eyesight led to his retirement from cartooning around 1917 and him taking a job as an agent for the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Co.
When May died Dec. 2, 1927, at age 67, his passing was front page news in the Free Press the following morning.