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The Tulsa World: Story of a family newspaper

The first issue of the Tulsa Daily World appeared on the afternoon of Sept. 14, 1905. The banner across the top of the front page declared: “Tulsa, Chosen Home of Prosperity and Opportunity, is a Busy City in a Busy Universe.” It cost 5 cents.

That first edition was printed on an old rattletrap press that a competitor had thrown out, according to one account. It was a humble beginning. But the World struck a chord with the people of Tulsa and northeastern Oklahoma that continues to resonate more than a century later.

Oil, water and printer’s ink

Just two months after the first copy of the World was printed, oil was discovered in the Glenn Pool south of Tulsa. Oil and water don’t mix, but the two vital liquids combined to ensure the growth of Tulsa and the viability of the newspaper. The World became a morning paper in 1906, but was an unprofitable venture until principal owner George Bayne hired Eugene Lorton as editor in 1911. Lorton was born in Missouri and grew up in Texas and Kansas. He was a printer, aspired to be a telegraph operator and broke his shoulder while working in a Kansas City railyard. For the next 20 years, he operated small newspapers in Idaho, Kansas and Washington state. At first, Lorton resisted Bayne’s offer, but eventually agreed to move to Tulsa as editor of the World. The 42-year-old editor was tested immediately.

Editor soars after hat trick

During Lorton’s first week on the job, his staff rigged a drawing so that he “won” a ride in a barnstorming biplane, a risky adventure at the time. Lorton didn’t know that he had been conspired against, but he knew he couldn’t back down.

“Having just arrived … and fearful of the possibility of lacking the courage to face the eventuality, this fear had more to do with forcing me to take the ride,” he recalled later.

Thus began Eugene Lorton’s 38 years running the Tulsa Daily World. (The word “Daily” was dropped from the newspaper’s name in 1977.) Lorton became co-owner two years after joining the World and in 1917, he became sole owner. The next day, the words “Oklahoma’s Greatest Newspaper” appeared for the first time on the front page.

Lorton’s politics defy definition. Conservative in fiscal matters and a moderate on social issues, he nevertheless c ampaigned relentlessly for public works projects and opposed women’s suffrage. He was a delegate to both Republican and Democratic national conventions, backed liberals and conservatives, opposed Prohibition, fought the Ku Klux Klan, questioned the death penalty and came to regard Franklin D. Roosevelt as a worldwide threat to democracy.

A friend once described Lorton as “a man covered with scars, but none … on his back.”

The campaign for which Lorton is best-known is the establishment of Lake Spavinaw as a municipal water source for Tulsa. The lack of clean, safe water had plagued Tulsa since its early years. Alternate plans were proposed, and Lorton engaged in a highly emotional – and at times personal – conflict with Charles Page, owner of the rival Tulsa Democrat, on the water issue. In 1924, water finally flowed to Tulsa from Spavinaw. The creation of an abundant water supply ensured the growth of Tulsa into a major metropolitan and commercial center.

On May 31, 1921, Tulsa was the scene of a tragic race riot that left dozens dead and much of the black Greenwood district a smoking ruin. Eugene Lorton started a relief fund and publicized it on the front page for days. In an editorial, the World apologized for “proud, matchless Tulsa before the bar of Christian civilization” for the shameful event.

Lorton detested the Ku Klux Klan and used his newspaper to identify the secret society’s local leaders and the politicians on its membership rolls. In 1923, Lorton wrote:

“We do not believe there is a citizen of either the invisible empire or the visible republic who will question the statement that eventually the Ku Klux Klan will run its course and be disbanded. Organized for the announced purpose of saving the country from an imaginary peril, it has come to constitute the very greatest peril the republic faces …”

‘A porch climber, a yegg and a low-down sneak thief’

Lorton often expressed his views in pungent editorials. Of a local businessman, he wrote:

“The accident of wealth alone is all that prevented him from being a porch climber (burglar), a yegg (safecracker) and a low-down sneak thief.”

He once addressed a governor of Oklahoma thus:

“You are an egotistical, law-defying, self-centered bigot.”

Lorton ran for the U.S. Senate in 1924 to oppose a candidate with Klan ties. An Episcopalian, Lorton was accused of being a closet Catholic and finished a distant second in the Republican primary.

Four years later, Lorton endorsed Al Smith, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. Smith had no chance of winning, but Lorton was incensed by attacks on Smith’s Catholicism.

“If a religious test is to become the fixed policy of this country for holding public office, or for the presidency,” a World editorial said, “what is to prevent within a decade or two proscribing some other sect or denomination than the Catholic?”

GOP presidential nominees favored since 1936

The World stayed with the Democrats and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936, but Lorton insisted that anything more than two terms amounted to despotism.

The World endorsed Republican Wendell Wilkie in 1940 and has not backed a Democratic presidential nominee since.

In 1941, the World and The Tulsa Tribune combined all non-editorial functions under the Newspaper Printing Corp. The Tribune moved into the World building at 415 S. Boulder Ave. Despite the joint-operating agreement between the papers, the newsrooms were fiercely competitive. That relationship continued for five decades, with the World publishing the morning paper seven days a week and the Tribune publishing afternoons, Monday through Saturday. The Tribune was bought out by the World in 1992 and ceased publication.

Eugene and Maud Lorton’s son, Robert, their only child, had died suddenly in 1938, leaving a 1-year-old son of his own who also was named Robert.

Upon Eugene’s death in 1949, Maud Lorton became publisher. Attorney Byron Boone succeeded her in 1959. Maud died 1962.

Robert E. Lorton went to work as a reporter at the World in 1959. He became an NPC director in 1964, president of World Publishing Co. in 1968, NPC chairman in 1976 and publisher of the Tulsa World upon Boone’s death in 1988.

A family tradition

In May 2005, Robert E. Lorton passed the title of publisher to his son, Robert E. Lorton III while retaining the position of chairman of the board of World Publishing. The World continues to be among the dwindling number of independent, family-owned newspapers in the United States.

Since 1905, the World has had four homes, all within a block of each other in downtown Tulsa. The first was a storefront at 16 W. Third St. The second, built in 1906, was a two-story building that also housed the federal courts at 9 W. Third St. The third location, completed in 1914, was on the north side of Fourth Street in the middle of the block between Boulder Avenue and Main Street. In 1918, the World moved to a building at 315 S. Boulder Ave. where it remains today, employing some 600 people and occupying almost a full city block.

The five-story Boulder Avenue building later grew to nine stories. After World War II, construction began on an addition called the NPC Building. The plant grew again in the 1970s, extending through the block to Main Street. In the late 1990s, the World undertook a $60 million expansion and renovation project that included the installation of new shaftless presses capable of churning out 70,000 copies an hour.

When terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, the new presses printed the World’s first “extra” in decades. The 50,000 copies sold out in a matter of hours. Eventually, 135,000 copies of the extra were printed, and almost all were sold.

The World was the first newspaper in North America to install the state-of-the-art shaftless Wifag presses, manufactured in Switzerland. Other World firsts include:

The World has received numerous professional honors and awards for its reporting, editing and photography. The newspaper is highly regarded throughout the region for its leadership in economic, educational, cultural and civic affairs. Its editorial pages are known for their progressive and thought-provoking stances.

The World sponsors spelling bees throughout eastern Oklahoma and sends the winner to compete in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. The newspaper raises hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for the Salvation Army’s holiday program. The World also helps support the Tulsa Area United Way, the Nature Conservancy, the Oklahoma Heritage Association, local performing arts organizations, museums and a host of other charities and worthy causes.

“There are two kinds of newspapers,” Eugene Lorton wrote in 1919. “One is an organ and the other an institution. The difference between the species is merely the degree in which they serve the public.

“The newspaper which becomes an institution does so by immersing itself in the life of a community and becoming an integral part of its growth and prosperity. It has a broad perspective and keeps its policy always in the advance of the growth and development of the community. The Tulsa Daily World is that sort.”