The Baltimore American
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| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Founded | 1964 |
| Ceased publication | May 27, 1986 |
The Baltimore News-American was a Baltimore broadsheet newspaper with a continuous lineage (in various forms) of more than 200 years of Baltimore newspapers. For much of the mid-20th century, it had the largest circulation in the city. Its final edition was published on May 27, 1986.
The News American was formed by a final merger of two papers, the Baltimore News-Post and The Baltimore American, in 1964, after a long 191-year history and weaning process. However, the papers themselves had a long history that preceded them, in particular the Baltimore American, which could trace its lineage unbroken to at least 1796, and it traditionally claimed even earlier back to 1773. Other precursor papers The News and Baltimore Post were founded in 1873 and 1922, respectively, but they established an excellent track record and broke new ground both in graphics, technology, journalistic style and their quality of writing and reporting in their shorter lives.
For most of the last two thirds of the 19th century, the buildings of the two main newspapers of the city faced each other across South Street along East Baltimore Street with The Sun's "Iron Building" of revolutionary cast-iron front design reflecting the earliest "skyscraper" construction technique of 1851. Built opposite later in 1873, was The News office/printing establishment with its mansard roof and corner clock tower. Long time owner/editor Charles H. Grasty who bought the Evening News in 1892, directed the newspaper's coverage of the gritty late 19th Century burgeoning city with using advanced presses and techniques of graphics, line drawings and larger headlines in the short days before the advent of printed page photographs.
Competing with "the other paper" across the street, bulletin boards, chalk boards across the second floor front of the building and hawking "newsies" (newspaper delivery boys) with latest news, telegraphed election results made the intersection the hottest place to be in the Victorian downtown central district.
All this perished in smoke with the "Great Baltimore Fire" in February 1904, which burned out both buildings to a shell. Publication had to be temporarily shifted to other neighboring cities such as Washington. Charles and Baltimore Streets at the geographic center of the city became the site of a new marble beaux-arts classical-style publishing offices for The Sunpapers for the next 45 years, which nicknamed the corner "Sun Square". The Baltimore American had a towering office skyscraper American Building quickly rebuilt on the same site with a distinctive elaborate green ground floor with gold lettering of the newspaper's logo and masthead and the dates 1773 and 1904 over the doorways. An additional printing plant several blocks south was located on East Pratt between South and Commerce Streets facing "The Basin" and its wharves (today's sleek Inner Harbor), was also built after the 1904 Great Fire, which devastated most of downtown Baltimore.
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