The Paper Route – Clint Chron
by Clint Chron (son of EC Chron)
My family moved from Ralls, Texas to Alaska in June of 1957. I was 10 years old. My Dad had been a farmer and wanted to see what it was like to live in the last frontier. At the time, Alaska was not a state. There were two major newspapers in Anchorage – the Anchorage Daily Times and the Anchorage Daily News. The papers were 10 cents each. A monthly subscription for the Times was $1.75. I always thought that the Times paper was the better newspaper. The owner of the Times was Robert Atwood.
Shortly after we moved into our house at Turnagain By the Sea, Dad took me to the Times office in downtown Anchorage. We went to a back office and met Gordon Striker. He was in charge of hiring boys/girls to deliver the Times. Gordon said that they did not have any openings, but he would put my name on the list. I figured that would be the last time that I would ever hear about a job with the Times. I did not know what the job paid, but any money would have been welcomed. My previous work had been doing odd jobs for my Dad. I think that my total available money was about $15. Several years earlier, Dad had given Josa (my sister) and myself a calf (one for each of us). The calves were out on the cotton farm. He said that when he sold the cows (for meat) he would give us the money and we would put it in a bank account. So I ended up with about $150 in a Ralls bank. When Dad was looking for a house in Anchorage, I remember my grandfather telling me that Dad might have to use my money to help with moving into a house. I hoped that never happened. $150 back in 57 was about $1500 today.
About the time that school was starting in the fall of 1958, I got a call from Gordon Striker. He said that he had a paper route for me that was close to where I lived. I immediately took the job. I was put in contact with the current paper carrier – Jerry Baker. He showed me all the houses on the route and then I was on my own. The pay was 3 cents a paper and I had about 60 customers. I had to deliver papers six days a week – there was no Sunday paper. The bundle of papers was dropped off on my driveway in the afternoon. I got home from school around 3:30, loaded the papers into a red Times cloth paper-bag and started the deliveries. It took about one hour to deliver all of the papers. After the second day on the job, I forgot to deliver the paper to one customer. The customer complained and I got a pink slip (aka “kick”) the next day with the bundle of papers. I was docked $0.50 for the non-delivery. I figured out pretty quick the location of the missed customer.
I did not know it at the time, but I probably had the premier paper route in all of Alaska.
All of the houses on Marston Drive were destroyed in the 1964 earthquake. My house was the large red circle at the bottom left of the route.
Many of my customers were the “movers and shakers” of the Anchorage community. These included:
Dr. Lloyd Hines – well known Alaskan dentist and land developer
Dr. Asa Martin – well known Anchorage doctor
Robert Atwood – owner of the Times newspaper
Robert Baker – owner of Matanuska Valley Bank – I took over the Times paper route from his son – Jerry
Elmer Rasmussen – owner of largest bank in Alaska
Al Swalling – owner of one of Alaska’s largest construction companies – I was a classmate of his son – Mike Swalling
Walter Hickel – another owner of a construction company – Walter eventually became the governor of Alaska – I was a classmate of his son – Wally Hickel
Roger Laube – music director at First Baptist Church of Anchorage and senior officer at one of the Anchorage banks
Max Curtis – my Dad bought our house from Max
Al Gay – well known Alaska bush pilot
Once a month, I had to go visit each customer in the evening and collect the $1.75. Some customers were never home. For one customer, I had to back four or five times each month before I could collect from them. I would have to use my own money to pay for their subscription and then collect from them at a later date. After I completed the collections, I would take the money to the Times office and they would pay me. After paying taxes and Social Security, I ended up with about $33. After I received my first pay check, my mother and I went to a toy store that was near the Times office on 4th Avenue. I spent most of the $33 on toys for myself and toys for my three sisters. I remember buying hula hoops for Josa and Deanna. I was more frugal on my later pay checks. I always made sure that I gave 10% of my pay to the church.
I had to give up the route in May of 1959. We moved to Eagle River where my Dad was pastor of First Baptist Church of Eagle River.