Newspaper carrier Sean Aksamit in Homewood in 1974. (Chicago Tribune)
As part of our 175th anniversary celebration, we asked for your stories as former Chicago Tribune carriers. We got back heartfelt and funny tales of time spent as a newspaper carrier, often a person’s first job. Some walked their Tribune paper routes with dogs, others had siblings they accompanied and some were chauffeured by their parents.
You sent in many stories about your time delivering the Tribune in the snow, many using sleds instead of bikes or wagons, to navigate the unplowed early morning streets.
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Many carriers remembered the heavy Sunday editions that landed on doorsteps with a thud. As former carrier Bobby Ziegler put it: “The thump of the paper hitting the porch or bang off the screen door served as a Chicago alarm clock.”
Read some of the stories sent to us by former Tribune carriers. These have been edited for length and clarity.
Newspaper carrier Sean Aksamit in Homewood in 1974. (Chicago Tribune archive)
Route: 79th to 83rd from Yates to Crandon
“I called for years seeking to be a paperboy and finally someone called. I remember waking up extra early to put my papers together and going out while it was dark. My dad helped me by driving me in a station wagon as I would hop out of the back, toss the paper, and jump by. ... The pay was $40 or $50 every two weeks but later on dropped to $25, so dad gave me my first labor lesson, adios paper route. I really enjoyed spending time with my dad!”
Route: Dolton, South Holland 153rd-156th streets
“Most memorable moment was delivering the Trib the Sunday morning the day after the ‘79 Blizzard. Worse, the Sunday Trib was the size of a Chicago phone book those days. No car, nor bike could get through the snowdrifts. Had to do the route by foot, about six or seven papers at a time. It took several hours, but every customer on my route got the paper that day.”
“Started in seventh grade and left in high school. Got up early every morning, about 6 a.m. before school, and a bundle of papers would be on my front porch. Had about 50 papers I delivered. Loaded them up into blue canvas Trib carrier bag I had and started out walking around my neighborhood. I think I made $5.00 a week, which was pretty good for a 12-year-old in 1967.
“Two headlines I still remember were both in 1968. The first was the King assassination with the photo of the men on the balcony pointing and Bobby Kennedy wins California. Later news that day was about his assassination. Heady times.”
The Chicago Tribune announced that Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in their April 5, 1968 edition. (Chicago Tribune)
Route: Clinton Avenue between Roosevelt and 16th Street in Berwyn
“I lived along the route and enjoyed the responsibility of getting up early to deliver; earlier on Sundays to stuff the ‘colors.’ I had a wooden cart that I’d push down the sidewalk; there was way too much to use my bike. A few customers also got The Wall Street Journal or Hlasatel, a Czech language paper for the many Bohemian Americans in Berwyn.
“In December, I would offer a calendar for the new year, which also meant an annual tip! All the kids would ride their bikes to the office periodically for meetings. Having a job was a big deal as a kid — for self-esteem that you were trusted to do it, some status and a paycheck was pretty cool too. It was one of my all-time favorite jobs.”
Route: Surrounded by Peterson, Ridge, Granville, Hoyne
“My brother Jack Callahan, one year older, and I took over the two routes that twin brother neighbors had before us. We each had a hundred papers to deliver each day, and our routes included just residential homes and up to four-story apartment buildings. Each morning, rain, shine, snow, warm or cold two large bundles were left at the curb by the apartment building in which we lived.
“We used wagons to complete our routes and had a cover to protect the papers from rain and snow. We each received 1 penny per paper, about $30 per month. This was an early experience for discipline and work ethic, and an early life-learning value of the benefit of work.”
“Newspapers. Ah! The smell, the ink on my hands. A young teenager out on his own to explore the world in the pre-dawn hours, making money and learning a whole lot more. Those Tribune phone book Sunday editions, ha ha. My first Tribune route was south of Blackhawk Park. It was me and my heavy push newspaper cart rambling down the middle of the street, hitting customers on both sides of the street. Bungalows, two-flats and apartments. Even numbers, odd numbers, N.E.W.S.: north, east, west and south. Boy, I could hit a porch or door very accurately from the curb. From the middle of the street things could get dicey. An occasional broken window brought great excitement, too. Most people were asleep. The thump of the paper hitting the porch or bang off the screen door served as a Chicago alarm clock.”
“I delivered the afternoon Tribune. Every day after school I find my bundle of papers on the front porch. Thursdays, we had an extra bundle with an ads and coupons. I rolled my papers up, banded them with rubber bands, and stuffed my big Tribune bag. I secured my bag on my bike handlebars. I had a banana seat so I could scooch back and offset the weight trying to flip my bike forward. With each toss it became easier to ride. ... Those were fun days. It really didn’t seem like work.”
Route: Evanston (Oakton Street between Custer and Ridge)
“I pushed this large, yellow wooden cart loaded with newspapers up Oakton Street. I managed to save the money I earned delivering newspapers and purchased my first car with that money when I got my driver’s license. I have never forgotten those days.”
“Fondest memory of those days was a beautiful, snowing evening after school. Big snowflakes falling as I delivered my Tribune paper route in Addison, Ill., 1966ish. It was like a movie. That’s how I started my working career.”
Years as carrier: 1973-1974, 1976-1978, 1980-1983
“I started with the Tribune-owned Chicago American afternoon paper in 1968. I tagged along with my older brother David on his early morning Tribune route at the same time. My brother died at 17 and these mornings allow me happy memories that are often obscured by his tragic death.
“One weekday morning in 1974, the papers were heavier than usual because of the insert of the transcripts of the Nixon tapes.”
Chicago American news carrier boys were given free tickets, which they are waving here, for rides at Riverview Park on Aug. 15, 1955. (Al Phillips/Chicago Tribune)
Route: Southwest Side, Stevenson school, Scottsdale, Crestline, St. Bedes, etc.
“Snowstorm 1967. I put the papers in a kiddie pool, shaped like a whale. I put a rope through the whale’s nose and pulled the papers through the drifts. It took hours to deliver the route. No walks or steps were shoveled for days, but I got them all delivered!”
Route: 88th and King Drive (in 1956, it was called South Park)
“I did a morning Tribune paper route with my oldest brother Jim. What I remember most was winter and the cold biting my face as we heading out on our morning route. Oftentimes Jim would load the papers and I (I was only 6) on a sled and drag us through the snow. If we got too cold Jim would have matches and we would light a garbage can on fire in an alley to warm up.
“Many of the ‘stops’ on our route were apartment buildings. The challenge was tossing a paper up to the third floor without breaking a window. We did pretty well but not 100% successful and broken windows came out of our pay. Sunday was a different story. Those papers were so bulky and heavy we had to walk them up. Those early mornings with my brother bonded us for life!”
“I delivered the HUGE Sunday Tribune using my Flyer red wagon. The comics and advertisements came on Saturday and they had to be collated with the news section which was delivered early Sunday morning. It was ‘always’ cold and sometimes raining on Sunday. But I was able to save enough to start my college fund.”
“My parents required me to earn $100 toward the cost of attending Chicago White Sox Boys Camp. So at age 9, I got a route delivering 50 Tribunes, six days a week. My dad helped me roll the papers and then I was on my own — no chauffeuring no matter how cold or snowy it got!
“Besides being able to attend camp for three years, I also ‘learned’ how to be a sportswriter by reading while I was supposed to be rolling. By 13, I was writing for the local community paper. I later answered phones and then interned with Suburban Trib sports before stringing for Suburban Trib and eventually the Tribune. Thirty years later, my daughter was working and writing for the Tribune.”
Route: Morton Grove on Luna, Linder and Lotus avenues
“I started with one route, about 30 papers. The adjacent route became available and I asked for it, doubling my pay (and workload, to 60 papers). Monday through Saturday, I was up early to wrap papers and load my bike, a Sky Blue, single speed Schwinn Racer. I bought twin, silver, metal baskets and mounted them over the rear fender, so I could efficiently grab and toss the day’s news. My pay was about 1.5 or 2 cents per paper, about a dollar per day.
“There was a bonus for having no complaints in a month. One frozen day, I rode across a lawn to get the paper on their porch. It left a single track of wheel marks on the snow-covered lawn. Those marks stayed for a couple weeks and lead to a complaint. That was a big deal, because I lost the month’s bonus, which was maybe a dollar or two.”
Driver Ed Koga arranges bundles of newspapers in a box truck for delivery at the Freedom Center on Aug. 20, 2016, in Chicago. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
“The most memorable story was on June 6, 1968. I was 12 years old and I was riding my bike delivering the Tribune front door to front door because that’s what we did back then. The headline read Kennedy ‘Critical.’ Going door to door I saw his face at every stop. Of course we found out a short time later that Robert Kennedy died that day. A very sad day.”
Route: Lavergne Avenue in Skokie
“I started selling newspapers at 6:30 a.m. Monday to Friday at the Skokie Swift station on Dempster Street in 1964 at 9 years old. When I went to middle school and the class hours changed, I became a morning newspaper delivery boy. The worst time, of course, was during the heavy winter snow storms because at 6 a.m. the streets were not necessarily plowed so I had to walk in the street ‘plowing my own path.’ It was a great experience that taught me about hard work and rewards!”
Route: Skokie: Kostner between Main and Oakton
“First day doing the paper route, I’m 8 years old, it’s Feb, 14, 1972, and there is a HUGE snowstorm. So the idea I could ride my bike delivering papers was squashed. I took out my sled and started pulling the papers as I’m attempting to read the list of customer’s addresses in the blowing snow. What should have been 30 minutes to deliver all the papers turned into much longer. Finally, my mother, in her car, found me and drove me to each house as I delivered the papers. You’d think that would be my first and last day, but I kept that route for four years!”
Route: Lathrop Avenue, from Division Street to Chicago Avenue; River Forest
“I delivered newspapers for the street parallel to my street, one street to the west. For reasons never clear, another kid, who lived a few blocks away, got to deliver the papers on my street. The newspaper delivery coordinator dropped that kid’s bundle off at our house for convenience’s sake. So I struck up a friendship with that kid, Jim Cox.
“Jim Cox went on to be editor in chief of Trapeze, the Oak Park and River Forest High School student newspaper. I was sports editor. We both went on to earn journalism degrees at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Jim eventually became a Hong Kong-based, USA Today foreign correspondent; I worked nearly four decades in journalism, about half of them at The Oregonian in Portland. Jim is a White Sox fan. I am a Cubs fan. We are still friends.”
The Chicago Tribune press room at Freedom Center in an undated photo. (Charles Cherney/Chicago Tribune)
Route: I was a carrier on the Army Base, Ft. Sheridan. I was supplied by the Highland Park News Agency.
“I was raised as an ‘Army Brat’ and our family had moved back from Europe where my dad was stationed there at Ft. Sheridan, near Highwood and Highland Park. I was 12 years old and chomping at the bit to start making my own money. My most notable memories were my daily scouring of the headlines before rolling my papers and heading out. Those were the days of the Vietnam War winding down and Nixon’s Watergate issues.
"I even won a contest selling subscriptions which earned me an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C., to see Nixon’s inauguration in ‘73. It was my first job and one I was always proud to have and never forgot."
“In 1956, I was 10 and started delivering approximately 30 Tribunes Monday through Saturday around my neighborhood in Morton Grove. I was paid a penny for each newspaper. My father told me treat the customer right always give a dry newspaper not a wet one to them. When it was raining or snowing, I would walk my newspaper route and put the paper between the front door and screen door. I have never forgotten this advice which has helped me to be a good husband, father, brother and friend, and used this advice to guide me in my successful business career.”
“Before school, I would drive my Volkswagen over to the office in Carol Stream, pick up bundles of papers and deliver them to nearby apartments. It was a sweet gig because I just dropped them off left and right, $.05 a paper, as I ran through the hallways. Got a few complaints from people that didn’t like to hear someone running outside their door at 5 a.m.”
Route: 109th Place to 107th St. and Glenroy Ave., South Side
“I had a great time delivering the Tribune. One time I was ill for a few days and my boss covered the route for me in the Chicago Tribune truck. When I got better, I saw my boss delivering the papers, and I went out to catch him on my bike. When he first saw me he became upset with me, because he thought I wasn’t ill and just playing around. I informed him that I was coming to let him know I was better and that I could take over. He finished the deliveries that day and I was back on my route the following day.”
Route: Touhy/Estes/Greenleaf and later Winston Towers
“I was a Tribune newspaper boy for a long time. I remember the blizzard of 1967. I started delivering the papers with rain gear on and it was warm. I later changed into snow gear and completed my route two hours late because of the rapid, wet falling snow!”
Pedestrians buck the blizzard on Michigan Avenue while the storm continues to pile up troubles for Chicagoans on Jan. 26, 1967. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)
Route: Oak Terrace, Witch Wood Drive, Moffat Road, Ravine Forest Drive (basically southeast Lake Bluff)
“My route was small in the beginning but built it to over 130 daily. My dad worked at the Tribune so I could not disappoint. He woke me up at 5 a.m. to start my day if I failed to hear the alarm clock. Pitch black mornings helped with my fear of the dark and started my love of sunrises.
“Saturday I would get my bundles of inserts with Sunday’s comics and preprints that I had to insert by hand and roll with green or red rubber bands or bags when raining. I preferred the square plastic bags so I could frisbee the almost 3- to 5-pound complete Sunday paper to the doorsteps.
“Collecting was difficult but it helped me gain confidence in asking for the order. I learned to make proper change and give receipts. Payment proof were little corrugated squares torn out of my carrier book depicting each week. I kept a money bag with hundreds of dollars while collecting with no trouble ever.
“Good training for a young boy who still sees the value of a great newspaper. Learning to read the news before anyone else got word of it was a privilege. My wife and I own and publish Montana Senior News and Idaho Senior Independent. Statewide distribution bimonthly newspapers with online sites. Perhaps my early introduction to the business as a carrier for the Trib provided me the solid foundation for my career.”