The Press: Last Edition

The last edition was just off the presses, the night shift of the Baltimore Post had just gone on duty one evening last week, when muffled explosions shook the composing room floor. Clouds of smoke bearing acrid fumes sent the printers flying for exits. Flames shot up the elevator shaft, mushroomed out through the four stories of the old triangular building. Some of the 35 occupants fought their way out through halls and stairways; others made for the fire escapes. One linotype operator, Joseph Douglass, did not wait for firemen to raise a ladder, jumped from the third floor, died of his injuries. Two hundred firemen, working with ice-sheathed apparatus in a high wind, prevented the fire from spreading beyond the busy corner of Hanover & Lombard Streets. But the Post building was completely wrecked.

Next day the Post's publishers (Scripps-Howard) accepted the handsome offer of its rival Sun to publish from the Sun plant. Post and Sun have been friendly rivals since the Post was founded in 1922, but slightly less friendly since two years ago when the Post abandoned its tabloid form to compete as a full-size evening paper.