Most Friday Flashbacks show a photo or two. I provide background. Readers add their own memories in the Comments section.
Today’s post is different. If you know what the image shows, click “Comments” below.
And if you have any recollections about it, include them too.
(Hint: This was first posted on Facebook by Anne Villalon Speyer)
Town Cryer?
The Town Crier newspaper
It’s the “Town Crier” from one of the other Westport newspapers of the same name. It folded some time in the 1970’s I believe.
This one is simply too easy for me. Anne’s father was the publisher and my mom was a journalist and an editor. I learned how to type and set headlines. I’m not going to name the publication, but old Westporters will know that I’m right!
As already noted, The Town Crier. I always thought it was a better paper than the Westport News.
I agree. The Town Crier was more original, more interesting, and printed on better paper.
Clearly The Town Crier newspaper of an earlier era Villion family ran it
Town Crier from when we had 2 newspapers
Town Crier with 100% certainty!
The Town Crier newspaper
Of course! It’s the old Town Crier.
That is the image of The Westport Town Crier which was the only local paper until the Westport News came along (I believe that was in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s).
Adam: but for how long was it the only newspaper in town? In the mid-1950s, it was known as the Westport Town Crier & Herald. So, was there a predecessor newspaper, the Westport Herald, and was there a merger (similar to the World Telegram & Sun, an afternoon NYC newspaper I used to read the sports section of in the early 1960s)? I believe the Westport News came along in 1964.
The Town Crier…very much missed. Back in the 70’s I think?
This is of course the “mascot” of the Town Crier newspaper. In 1970, the Staples “Inklings” April Fools issue, traditionally called “Finklings” included a caricature of this drawing by my brother, Bruce Brodie. We had originally intended to call the parody issue the “Town Liar”, but the legal team at the Westport News, which printed Inklings for us, felt that was inappropriate (perhaps libelous), so we reworked the title banner to read “The Fink Lings” in a parody of the Town Crier font. Everyone got the joke anyway.
The Town Crier was my classmate’s dad’s paper. Andy Villalon was known as the “town crier” on the Staples campus.
I believe that’s the symbol for The Town Crier, the local newspaper.
My wedding announcement was in it!
The town crier,our town newspaper!
Indeed it was the Town Crier, Westport’s newspaper from the mid-19th century to the (early?) 1970s. It supplanted the Westporter Herald, and had its heyday for a decade or so before the Westport News began in the mid-60s.
The Westport News was the feisty upstart, begun by real estate developer BV Brooks. It had a series of excellent editors, including its first (?), Jo Fox Brosious. She made a name for the paper by spearheading the fight to save Cockenoe Island, when it was bought by United Illuminating for the site of a nuclear power plant. When the town finally purchased it, right around Christmastime, the News ran the memorable headline: “Isle Be Home For Christmas.”
The Town Crier, under publisher Luis Villalon, was somewhat conservative. But it was filled with all kinds of town news – not just politics, but every speeding ticket, divorce proceeding, etc. Plenty of sports and social events too. And a front page feature, “New Folks in Town,” featuring newcomers to Westport. There was a Fairfield edition too, I believe.
The Town Crier had extensive sports coverage back in the day. I remember when Dan Shulman, the son of prominent author Max Shulman was the sportswriter assigned to cover Staples soccer my brother’s junior year (1965). He wrote long high-quality articles, which were typically accompanied by some really good action photos. It felt almost as if I were reading about my brother and his team in The New York Times sports section; it was great!
The image is from The Town Crier, a newspaper published in Westport During the mid 70s
My birth announcment was in the Town Crier and I am class of 68
It was a full-sized newspaper.
Absolutely the Town Crier – the Villalons were our neighbors back in the 1950’s. Great times swimming in their pond and skating on it in the winter – great times!
The Town Crier Newspaper logo. The paper I grew up with in Westport. Then there were two. The Town Crier and the Westport News. Will always remember waiting for the Town Crier to arrive and reading their sports section and all the around the town news!!
I don’t remember the year, but my first fishing column was published for the Town Crier. The sports editor was named Brown. They subsequently paid me $5.00 a week for columns but it was the start of thousands pf columns in newspapers and magazines ranging from news papers in Westport, Norwalk, Darien, New Haven, and magazines from the New England Fisherman to Salt Water Sportsman and Outdoor Life. Didn’t make a lpt of money, but fished all over the country and enjoyed a wonderful retirement after a 26-year police career with the Westport Police Department. – Dick Alley
For those who don’t know, “Alley’s Angles” was a must-read for years — whether you were a fisherman or not. I learned a ton!
my father, Colin Gunn, was the attorney for Dexter Brooks, who I believe founded the Westport News. I recall my father saying that Dexter founded the Westport News because of some issue that was dividing the town, although I don’t recall what he said that issue was.
I remember there were 2 newspapers when we moved to Westport.
The Westport News which my Dad wrote a column for ( The Younger Generation) and the Town Crier
Town Crier. Knew some folks that worked there.
That was the logo of the Town Crier our local
Newspaper before the Westport News
My grandmother, Charlotte Comden, was the secretary to the publisher in the early 1960s. I remember visiting her at work at least once.