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Picture from the Past
Local newspaperman made his mark in San Francisco
By John S. Baggerly
Some 284 newspapers started up and failed in San Francisco prior to 1900. Thereafter, the city became a four-newspaper town (News, Call-Bulletin, Chronicle and Examiner). Now, just the latter two remain, the sale of the Examiner having just survived a court challenge.
Early in the past century, William Randolf Hearst was bounced out of Harvard College for placing a chamber pot under a statue of John Harvard. Back in California, young Hearst showed an interest in newspapers, and his father, wealthy from mining, bought him the floundering Examiner.
The elder Hearst was probably surprised when his son built the nation's largest newspaper chain with enough punch to prod the United States into starting the Spanish-American War. Today, readers know the publisher as builder of San Simeon's magnificent Hearst Castle.
The most visible San Francisco publisher during the 1900s was Fremont Older, a Civil War orphan whose wise mother had him learn the printing trade, and sent him from Wisconsin to the Bay Area by train. He hooked up with a San Mateo newspaper and the next day found himself editing the paper when his boss was jailed on a libel charge. Older also became Hearst's top Pacific Coast editor.
When Older died in 1935, the San Francisco Call-Bulletin ran his photograph with his familiar cigar, and told of his private funeral and burial at his estate at the top of Saratoga's Prospect Road. He was interred among the graves of his many dogs. After wife Cora died, both were interred at the Los Gatos Cemetery.
Older was familiar to Los Gatos men who rode the commute train weekdays to and from San Francisco. Older boarded at Azule, a whistle stop between Saratoga and Cupertino. Part of the Older estate is now part of the Saratoga Golf Course.
Flash back to Older managing the Bulletin and starting the nation's first sports page, which engaged teenage artists Rube Goldberg and Robert Ripley. By chance, Ripley drew five oddity items and titled the drawing Believe It Or Not. Soon he was syndicated worldwide and became fabulously wealthy. Another artist, "TAD" Dorgan, was snatched away by Hearst from San Francisco and put to work on his New York-area newspapers in preparation for his own political career that never took off. Dorgan concocted TAD from his initials: Thomas Aloysius Dorgan.
Early on, Older had faith in women reporters. One time a man charged with murder said he was not at the scene but was at home with his prostitute girlfriend. She would not open the door to male reporters. A woman reporter knocked and said, "I think I can help you." The girlfriend opened the door and the woman had her interview.
Older also saw promise in young Evelyn Wells and convinced the warden of San Quentin Prison to let her do a story. It was a hit with readers. She later wrote Older's biography.
Older, ever after the scoop, was known to have a reporter signal a verdict at the window of a locked courtroom. He also fought to get labor leader Tom Mooney released from prison after he was apparently framed in a bombing. Older was also responsible for the jailing of political boss Abe Ruef, and then fought for his release when he learned Ruef was but one of many municipal crooks.
Stepping on the toes of "higher ups" got Older kidnapped and taken under guard by train to Southern California. He was later recognized by friends who phoned police and had Older taken from his abductors.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
This collection of old San Francisco newspapers includes Fremont Older's 'Call-Bulletin,' which ran a photo and story on him after his death.
