6
The Later Colonies and the Display Ads
A contemporary of the Smadbecks, writing about the social history of America in the first quarter of the twentieth century, observed that mass production went hand in hand with an enormous expansion of advertising. The author credited the automobile with causing the dramatic evolution of ads from small formal announcements, providing no more than the name and address of the merchant, to large decorated displays that constituted salesmanship for the consumption of commodities. Advertisements for autos were directed to a wholly unoccupied market and were fashioned to persuade the masses of readers that they needed this new product.1 Selling lakeside lots at a resort within easy distance of a large metropolis had similar potential with throngs of city dwellers waiting to be told that they would be happy if they owned a little piece of countryside property.
The Smadbecks were better positioned to take advantage of this opportunity than was Bertram Mayo. Mayo certainly recognized the power of display ads and made effective use of them in the Diamond Drilling project. But displays were not used in his newspaper colony ventures. For the Lakewood promotion with the Chicago Evening Post the promotional booklet was sent out in the mail2 and the newspaper printed only a few minimal announcements. Beachwood was publicized with more than fifteen advertorials in the first few months of the promotion but, again, there were no display ads, just some notices providing the summer hours for the offices of the promotion department at the New York Tribune’s headquarters and at Beachwood.3 The hard sell advertisements for Beachwood—the November 1914 extra edition of the Tribune and Mayo’s pamphlet—were both distributed by direct mail rather than printed in the paper itself as advertisements.4
Even though the Tribune carried no ads for its own promotion it nevertheless sold advertising space to several builders seeking to construct bungalows at Beachwood5 and, five years later, accepted display ads for the Smadbeck colony of Patchogue Lakes sponsored by the competing Brooklyn Citizen.6 The changing nature of journalism, fierce competition among penny papers, and a self-righteous attitude on the part of the Tribune provide explanations for this seeming inconsistency.
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Will Irwin was a well-established author and journalist when he composed the estimable series “The American Newspaper” for Collier’s published in the magazine between January and July 1911. Comprised of fourteen essays the compilation was subtitled “A Study of Journalism in Its Relation to the Public,” and described itself as a collection of articles on “the whole subject of American journalism—the most powerful extrajudicial force in society, except religion.” It was a hefty undertaking, one that was capably handled by Will Irwin.
Reflecting on the relatively brief history of journalism in America, Irwin wrote that, except for Darwin’s scientific method, “no plant of thought ever grew so great in so short a period.”7 His writings traced the history of newspaper development and progressed with an analysis of the power and influence of newspapers, the rise and fall of yellow journalism, the ethics of newswriting, and the relationship of journalism to big business.
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Throughout most of its history in the United States journalism flourished unfettered under the protection of freedom of speech. Newspapers evolved from the political pamphlet or broadside, an expression of opinion in written form, comprised of more editorials than news and, accordingly, appealing primarily to the intellectual classes. If news was reported at all it was presented as background for opinion. Irwin wrote that “news as we know it was not yet invented. The editorial, on the other hand, came to full perfection by the end of the eighteenth century.”8
The purpose of these early papers was to mold public thought, promote popular causes, and speak for the people, thus providing a basis for freedom from legal restraint. This principle allowed the American press to create sentiment for independence and spurred our founders, who understood how journalism had assisted our struggle to be free, to give the fullest liberty to the press.
The Revolutionary War thus shaped journalism by ensuring freedom of the press. The Civil War changed the luxury of reading a newspaper into a necessity as residents on both sides of the divided country craved reports of the battles and lists of the dead. Both wars had an effect on molding journalism in America: the first resulted in a free press for America and the second provided a national demand for news.
Changes in newspaper content continued to surge at an increasingly faster pace in the forty-five years following the Civil War, due both to the ideas of forward-thinking newsmen and to technological advancements. Will Irwin profiled the cognition and the practices of several eighteenth-century leaders in newspaper journalism. He credited James Gordon Bennett, Sr., publisher of the New York Herald, with inventing news in the modern sense by reporting on Wall Street finances, private scandals, and personal troubles. Irwin also singled out Benjamin H. Day for creating the first American newspaper for the masses, the New York Sun, a paper that cost only one cent with profits garnered from larger circulation and advertising.9
The foresight of Bennett, Day, and others like them gave rise to the penny paper, filled with news about the troubles of common people, and produced a great new body of readership, an outcome that was fueled by technology. Nineteenth-century technological advancements in production of print media, including the steam powered rotary press, wood pulp paper, and rolled paper, all contributed to making newspapers larger, cheaper, and more widely distributed. Newspapers became less costly to produce and more affordable for the average person.
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But penny papers needed to sell six times as many copies as the mainstream publications to match subscription revenue. The desire to increase the number of subscribers brought about the profession of Circulation Manager,10 newspaper men who increased circulation figures by discounting subscription rates, awarding premiums sometimes worth more than the cost of a subscription, and conducting voting contests with elaborate prizes for signing up subscribers. Copies of publications were sent to nonsubscribers in numbers wildly disproportionate to paid subscriptions and “clubbing” was initiated—offering a subscription to another publication as a premium resulting in two journals adding subscribers for the purchase of only one subscription.
Maneuvers to raise circulation numbers became increasingly aggressive with many publishers resorting to outright fabrication. Some papers claimed circulation figures far in excess of the number of copies their presses were capable of printing or set the counters of their presses forward by thousands of copies before beginning a print run. Others kept two sets of books with two different figures for two different purposes or bribed paper manufacturers and freight agents to submit bogus receipts for products not ordered. Exaggeration was so blatant and figures so unbelievable that verified and sworn circulation statements were routinely regarded with suspicion.11
Inflating circulation by giving papers away to nonsubscribers or falsifying the figures does not add to a newspaper’s income. But it does increase advertising revenue—more subscribers translate into higher advertising rates. In effect advertisers purchase circulation, that is, the privilege of using the newspaper’s customers for the purpose of getting business for themselves.12
In exploring the question of whether journalism was a profession or a business13 Will Irwin observed that the agendas at national publishing conventions did not include methods of news-gathering and editorial problems, but instead dealt with topics such as the price of paper and machinery, circulation, and advertising rates. Irwin portrayed advertising as a vital necessity causing the American newspaper to become a great commercial enterprise.
Taking a piercing look at the role of advertising in journalism, he noted that as the cost of newspapers fell, more were purchased, and as circulation rose, so did the amount that could be charged for advertising.14 This resulted in advertisers replacing readers as the primary source of income for papers. As a consequence, the influence of advertising dollars altered the content of the newspapers, an observation concisely summed up as “modern business demands mutual favors.”15 It was this change in the nature of journalism that caused newspapers to slant opinion columns to attract advertising and spawned the advertorial reading notice.
Since the distribution of news was to be encouraged and fostered, publications were granted subsidized and coveted second-class mailing status. When advertisers sought to use second class mail to distribute circulars containing mostly ads to nonsubscribers, postal regulations were introduced.16 The Newspaper Publicity Act of 1912 imposed three requirements. In addition to mandating the disclosure of the names of owners and stockholders, the law required editors to label as “advertisement” any material inserted for payment that might be mistaken for a story. This provision was aimed at the newshead articles. The act also sought to remedy the fraudulent circulation situation by tersely imposing an obligation on daily newspapers to periodically declare the number of copies sold or distributed to paid subscribers.17
The law was quickly challenged and affirmed by the Supreme Court in June of 1913.18 In its decision the court, for the first time, sanctioned federal controls aimed directly at the press’ profit-making activities thereby acknowledging journalism as a business.19
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Technological and social factors were perhaps more responsible for the evolution in ads than were legal regulations. Initially considered undignified, advertising grew in acceptance as social attitudes changed and journalism transitioned away from literature and politics and toward business, police reports, rumor, scandal, and eventually, a voice for advertisers.20 In the years before the start of World War I newspapers came to be recognized as vendors of advertising, a commodity that had become the publisher’s main source of revenue.21
It took some time for the publishers to sort out how to cope with this new reality. The New York Tribune, whose stagnant circulation figures and resultant ad revenues were the lowest among comparable newspapers in New York,22 went beyond contests and premium schemes to attract more readers by adopting a rigorous editorial policy.23
When the Tribune first publicized the Beachwood project with a newshead article on November 18, 1914, the paper was in the midst of a campaign for truth in advertising. In early August of 1913 the Tribune began including a statement on its masthead promoting the integrity of its advertisers and vowing to avoid publication of any misleading claims. By October of 1914 the paper had adopted the slogan “First to Last the Truth: News–Editorials–Advertisements.” Two months later this assurance was turned into a money-back guarantee if a reader was dissatisfied with advertised merchandise. “No red tape. No quibbling. We make good promptly if the advertiser does not.”24
The Tribune reinforced this sanctimonious effort by engaging the services of Samuel Hopkins Adams, the well-known author, campaigner against misleading advertising in the patent medicine industry, and a strong force behind the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. Throughout the spring of 1915 the paper ran a series of articles by Adams addressing advertising abuses. These were succeeded by a column titled “Ad-Visor” where Adams answered inquiries concerning the validity of various advertisements. The column appeared periodically between July 1915 and December 1918 and perhaps provided the newspaper with an incentive to refrain from printing display ads for the Beachwood subscription promotion.
The Ad-Visor column attracted considerable attention but was not so sacrosanct as to refrain from promoting the Tribune’s own interests.25 This was openly demonstrated when a letter writer complained to the Ad-Visor that his Beachwood lot purchase was an outrage and a swindle. He expressed dissatisfaction with the location of the lots, that they were not staked out, and that the salesman on site accused him of removing the stakes. He considered himself lucky that he had not yet paid the full cost of the two lots.
Adams admitted receiving many letters about the promotion and traveled to Beachwood to view the lots purchased by the complainant. Concentrating on the bargain price of $19.60 per lot, Adams recognized that the deal appeared to be too good to be true giving rise to suspicions, but he staunchly defended the value of the land and noted that, since all lots were the same price, buyers should expect that some lot locations would be better than others. He criticized the letter writer’s characterizations of outrage and swindle and advised him to hold on to his purchase.26
Thus, the Ad-Visor column functioned as an endorsement of the Beachwood deal by a renowned crusader for advertising honesty. Still both Mayo and the New York Tribune could more easily escape the money back-guarantee if there were no display ads in the paper and the premium scheme was described only in advertorials. Just to be double sure the Tribune clarified its policy by excepting refunds on the purchase of real estate or investments.27 Nevertheless, the paper did make at least one refund for lots purchased at Beachwood but only after some quibbling.28
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The newspaper deal as formulated by Bertram Mayo was far more effective in building circulation than an offer of a clock or another household item as a premium. The only way to obtain a resort lot was by purchasing a subscription to the paper whereas clocks were available from many vendors. Also, readers had a desire to own more than one lot, sometimes four or five, and as many subscriptions. Lot buyers also prompted their friends to buy lots thereby encouraging them to subscribe, something not likely to occur if the premium were a flyswatter.
Mayo capitalized on the use of the premium, his plan increased circulation, and he used advertorials to make the newspaper deal a profitable venture for a publication. But given the changing social landscape of advertising, the Smadbecks were able to take the deal a step farther.
No standard contract existed when Home Guardian approached the Jewish Daily News about Asbury Park Estates. The Home Guardian agent presented the basic terms of the offer, negotiated the fine points, and then had an employee of the newspaper draft the contract.29 In addition to increasing circulation and bringing in more subscription money, the Smadbeck advertising contract increased ad revenue for the paper in a multitude of ways. The agreement most likely included remuneration for both the advertorials and the substantial display ads for the promotion, a minimum amount of which was assured by the developer. These advertorials and display ads, while being paid for by the real estate developers, had the extra bonus of praising the newspaper and promoting the sale of subscriptions. Plus, the display ads were placed in competing papers.
The colony promotion attracted advertising from other businesses as well including some targeting their products and services specifically to the resort lot buyers, such as an ad for the Town Market Furniture Company proclaiming, “We Have 6 Big Floors of Just the Kind of Furniture You Want to Furnish Your Coon Lake Cottage.”30 The additional advertising allowed the paper to raise ad rates based on the increased number of readers and on the increased demand for advertising space in the paper.
No other advertising agreement was as monetarily beneficial to a newspaper. The sponsoring papers and the developers of the newspaper colonies had achieved an epitome of mutual codependence in selling and maximizing profits for each other’s products. The newspaper deal was an unequivocal business success.
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Advances in printing techniques also caused changes in the appearance and content of display ads. Varied and larger type size made ads easier to read and more attractive. The increase in the physical size of papers allowed advertisements to grow in width and length and gave rise to the full-page ad, in effect a billboard adapted to newspaper space.31 Larger ads allowed more room for fine line, detailed illustrations popularized by mail order catalogs while invention of the halftone process ushered in the use of photography.
Although the Smadbecks did make some use of direct mail, mostly fold-over postcards, they relied primarily upon display advertisements, introducing each new colony with a double full-page ad. Subtle changes demonstrate that they kept current with changing fashions in advertising trends. The 1916 Asbury Park Estates ad comprised two adjoining pages each capable of standing on its own. In comparison the 1922 ad for Lake Erie Beach was one complete ad spread out over two pages. Similarly, while the terms of the subscription offer remained unchanged, the words “Liberal” and “Premium” used in the 1919 Patchogue Lakes ad disappeared and were replaced by “Greatest” and “Offer” in the 1923 ads for Knightstown Lake.
The two-page debut ad for Pell Lake exemplifies the full maturity of newspaper colony advertisement. It appeared in the Chicago Evening Post on July 16, 1924 (courtesy Chicago Public Library).
These oversized and frequent display ads were a counterpart to the faux news articles, both often appearing in the same issue of a newspaper, although on different pages, each playing off the content of the other. The newsheads and the display ads differed primarily in appearance and configuration with both making heavy use of reason-why appeals.
The unwary reader could easily confuse the articles with news reports, but there was no mistaking the hard sell of the display ads. Advertisements for the resorts were dictated by the Smadbecks and, similar to the advertorials, were consistent from resort to resort in form, frequency, and substance.
This tandem sales approach, display ads and newshead stories, is illustrated with the promotions for two Minnesota resorts. Minnesota with its 10,000 lakes provided fertile ground for the Smadbecks. A year after Lake Saint Croix Beach, the colony of Coon Lake Beach was begun. It was located twenty-five miles north of the Twin Cities in Anoka County and was linked with a subscription to the Minneapolis Daily Star. Just as the promotion of Coon Lake Beach was winding down, a second Minneapolis Daily Star colony was announced at Carver Beach, fifteen miles southwest of the city on the shores of Long Lake. The opening ad for Carver Beach appeared in the Star on Tuesday, July 19, 1927.
The ads for Carver Beach and Coon Lake Beach were typical, in layout and placement, to the display advertisements for Pell Lake and the other Smadbeck developments. The initial display ad was always two full pages, usually appearing midweek. Near full-page ads followed every day for a week or more with two-page ads in the Saturday or Sunday edition. Tailored to attract attention, their size and prevalence could not be ignored by readers.
A month after promotion for Lake Erie Beach began the ads contracted to one-third or one-fourth page size. They continued to grow smaller, eventually eliminating all photographs. The low price of the lots was often emphasized (courtesy Newspapers.com).
After this initial burst of promotion, the ads would funnel down to a half-page or quarter-page, still impressive for a real estate campaign. Ads continued for five weeks or more, depending on how many lots there were, how fast they sold, and how much of the summer season remained. Typically, the total ad space purchased for a resort amounted to about fifteen full pages, an incredible amount of advertising and a big boost to the income of any newspaper. In promoting Coon Lake, the Minneapolis Daily Star further augmented its revenue by tacking on a disability insurance policy for an extra $1.25.32
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With Saint Croix, Coon Lake, and Carver Beach the Smadbeck machine had, in rapid succession, created three newspaper resorts encircling the Twin Cities. Another midwestern resort begun in this time frame was Times Beach, a collaboration with the Saint Louis Times. Deviating from the usual title formula, the name of the resort derived from that of the sponsoring newspaper. The 480 acres of farmland formed a fan-shaped area defined by the Meramec River curving around the northeast border, a highway running along the southern edge, and a local road on the west.33 The resort was on a flood plain and many of the cottages built there were mounted on stilts. In future years Times Beach would gain notoriety as a victim of the environmental movement.
The Smadbecks never abandoned pursuits closer to home, along the eastern seaboard. Penn Beach in New Jersey, begun in 1925, was located on the Delaware River, only a ferry boat ride away from New Castle, Delaware. The sponsoring paper was the Philadelphia Record but the location of the resort attracted people from Wilmington and Baltimore as well.
Advertisements for Penn Beach employed the Smadbecks’ dependably constant vocabulary, repeating certain information in every ad. This included, sensibly, the price of a lot and the terms of payment as well as the extra benefits. The clubhouse was always mentioned and photographs of the structure were often featured, first while it was under construction, then upon completion, and finally showing the furnished interior.
Additionally, the super-sized ads allowed room for many hyperbolic claims and other wordy hype employing every weapon in the advertising arsenal. The reason-why persuasive text included both pragmatic and emotional reasons for investing, made arguments to head off resistance, described the benefits of purchasing, urged fast action, and offered easy ways to pay.
While the ads claimed no profit for the newspaper, they appealed to the rationally minded by stressing the profit potential for buyers. All these phrases were used in an ad for Penn Beach: “the chance of a lifetime,” “great success and long profits,” “it is going to boom,” “your chance to buy good land that you can hold for a profit.” In addition to being a smart investment, it was pointed out that buyers could build two cottages, one for personal use and the other to rent out as a source of income.34
The display ads were also consistent in their omissions. They did not publicize that property owners would have the responsibility of maintaining the parkland and clubhouse, nor that the lots and any amounts paid in would be forfeited if payments were in default. Ads for a few of the earliest resorts provided lot size information but this detail soon disappeared not bothering to inform readers that the lots were so narrow that one lot was all but useless.
King Lake, begun about 1925 and named after the former property owner, was a project monitored by Arthur Smadbeck. Twenty-two miles from Omaha, Nebraska, it was among the more troublesome ventures due to its location just west of the Elkhorn River. Upon the request of the sponsoring newspaper, the Omaha Daily News, the health commissioner examined the shallow 20' deep wells and declared the water unfit for drinking unless boiled or chemically treated.35 The Smadbecks were called upon to dig two deeper wells and supply the water to the cottagers through a pipe system.36
Then in February of 1927 a four-mile-long ice block formed in the Elkhorn River and caused severe flooding. King Lake was underwater with extensive damage to the dwellings. When the floodwaters receded about four feet of mud was deposited in the lake. It took several years before the lake bed was dredged and 40,000 cubic yards of silt removed.37
As the 1920s progressed more and more people owned automobiles and the advertising kept pace by providing driving route information. Mastic Beach, along with King Lake and Penn Beach were among the resorts using massive blue arrows to point the way. An ad for Coon Lake Beach advised readers to follow the route “to the big 30-foot Blue Arrow” directing drivers to turn right to the resort.38 A Pell Lake display ad included a prominent arrow bearing the inscription “to Pell Lake.”
Just how closely the symbolism of the blue arrow became identified with the newspaper resorts is shown by a 1926 classified ad in the Omaha Evening World-Herald offering for sale the “Blue Arrow” cafe at King Lake.39
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Arthur Smadbeck also directed the development of Lake Como Beach, the third collaboration with the Chicago Evening Post and the second Smadbeck project in Walworth County, Wisconsin. The Como resort encompasses more than 1,000 acres and, in some ways, is more attractive than Pell Lake. The terrain is picturesquely hilly and filled with trees. But it lacks the cohesiveness, the oneness, that is characteristic of Pell Lake. Lake Como Beach colony runs along a portion of the northern shore of the lake while the western and southern sides were, in later years, developed with a resort at the western end and a single road with larger homes along the southern shore. There are no reliable road connections between these areas and Lake Como Beach.
Lake Como is a relatively large lake, one that is suitable for boating but not for swimming. The closest Lake Como Beach gets to having a beach is the word “Beach” in its name and a “Beach Road.” There simply is no good place for sandy access to the water. All the east-west roads dead end into marshland at the eastern end of the colony while the north-south roads end at the juncture with Lakeshore Drive. The area between Lakeshore Drive and the water is a narrow grassy slope that runs down to the water’s edge to house an endless string of piers and all manner of boats.
Contemporaneous with the popularity of newspaper colonies was land speculation in Florida.40 By the time Lake Como Beach debuted with an ad in the Post in May of 1926, the newspaper fad had hit its peak, concurrent with the apex of frenzied land buying in Florida. But the realty boom there involved huge sums of money and rampant speculation—it was a hefty business, concentrated in one state, and it landed with a definite thud. The newspaper resort operation, far more modest in size, scattered around the country, and promoted primarily as a vacation opportunity rather than as an investment, paled by comparison and, accordingly, had a much slower, softer fall. The contrast between the status of the two land booms in 1926 is illustrated by the headlines of side-by-side news articles in the Chicago Evening Post: “Lake Como Beauty Appreciated by New Lot Owners” and “Florida Land Company Fails for $8,581,576.”41 Newspaper resorts continued to be created for the remainder of the decade with a fair degree of success.
Other mid-decade colonies were begun in Ohio and New Jersey. Fairfield Beach, a promotion tied to the Columbus Dispatch, is on the south shore of Buckeye Lake, thirty-three miles east of Columbus, Ohio. The headline of the advertorial announcing Fairfield Beach, “Dispatch Offers Summer Home Sites for $69.50,” dominated the entire width of the front page and included a prominent illustration and map centered just below.42
The partnership with the Philadelphia Record in 1925 that produced Penn Beach was repeated with another resort in southern New Jersey located fifty miles straight south from Philadelphia. When ads for the colony began appearing in May of 1927 the disagreeably named Buckshutem Pond had been enlarged by a dam, and, together with the land surrounding it, was renamed Laurel Lake after the bushes that thrived in the area.
A newshead article promoting Laurel Lake described a remarkable transformation of the pond and the surrounding woods by surveyors, landscape artists, builders, and road crews. Planned features included a wide road all around the lake with a bridge over the stream, park areas cleared of shrubbery and planted with cedar and shade trees, and a lagoon with four continuously operating fountains. Nearing completion was a large clubhouse, fashioned in Old English architectural style, with a main room consisting of an imposing two storied hall, adorned with balconies at both ends and a large fireplace on one side. Brick terraces led to a pier and boat moorings. An attractive island out in the lake was reserved as a park for the lot owners.43
Just as the advertisements and the newsheads could exaggerate, and at times even misstate the facts, so could legitimate news articles about the resorts. The cost of the considerable construction work at Laurel Lake was reported as $400,000, a figure probably provided by the developers seeking to call attention to the project and highlighted by the paper as good news for the local economy.44 The Smadbecks had by this time established a two-year structure for colony development and exactly two years after Laurel Lake was begun, the local newspaper reported that construction work had been abandoned, an action that had a significant effect on local jobs. A failure to sell sufficient lots was cited as the cause45 but this account was inaccurate.
There was an aggressive push for sales of lots at Laurel Lake for the first ten days of May in 1929 with the final ads warning that the promotion would soon close and urging buyers to take advantage of the last chance to buy lots.46 The construction work at the colony was then suspended but not because of lack of sales—the Smadbecks had sold all but 900 of the initial 3,660 lots.47 The reason for the abandonment of Laurel Lake was the imminent announcement of an adjoining venture.
Smadbeck and the Philadelphia Record had created a second, smaller lake by building a dam across Buckshutem Creek at the western point of Laurel Lake and, on May 12, 1929, began the newspaper promotion for Beach Club Lake.48 Enough profits had been extracted from Laurel Lake and a new summer resort at a new lake with a fresh promotion was more likely to sell lots, and so the ongoing work at Laurel Lake was transferred to Beach Club Lake which now had the better chance of producing returns on the investment. The two adjoining colonies appeared to have both been successful, at least initially, and the Laurel Lake and Beach Club Lake Property Owners Association was formed in November of 1929.49
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Constraints on prospective buyers deciding whether or not to invest in a colony were reassuredly and affirmatively addressed in the ads with information designed to dispel any such reticence. A clear deed was promised and sometimes a certificate of title insurance. The reputation of the newspaper was promoted as an additional guaranty.
A significant holdback for a buyer was the daunting thought of erecting a cottage. Ads headed off this resistance in several ways. They encouraged construction, arguing that it would spur more lot sales and increase land values, and they also provided assistance with the building process. Patchogue Lakes offered free home plans with each lot,50 and at Lake Erie Beach ads proclaimed that “builders are on the ground prepared to furnish reasonable estimates for either homes or commercial buildings.”51
There were other tie-ins between the developers and contractors. Summer Bungalow Corporation specialized in building cottages and followed the Smadbecks from resort to resort. In 1927 Summer Bungalow employed a force of men to do construction work in Mastic.52 In July that same year, in a small ad in the Minneapolis Daily Star, Summer Bungalow described itself as “a national institution” which had decided to extend its operations to erecting summer homes at Carver Beach. A handsome cottage cost as little as $495 built on the owner’s lot. Interested parties were invited to the Minneapolis Daily Star building where the contractor had agents most likely sharing a room with Smadbecks’ lot sellers.53 At Laurel Lake, the builder placed a good-sized display ad in the Philadelphia Inquirer offering free bus tickets for travel to the resort where potential customers could view a fully equipped bungalow purchasable for $890 including two lots.54 Again, Summer Bungalow could be contacted at the offices of the newspaper. Another contractor established an office in the clubhouse at Lake Erie Beach and offered a variety of models, including a three-bedroom bungalow designed for a single 20' wide lot.55
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The interaction between the display ads and the pseudo news stories was further buttressed by a third marketing tactic—contact with a lot salesman. At Lake Erie Beach the Buffalo Enquirer reported that the marketing staff consisted of eight secretaries, two bookkeepers, two cashiers, and thirty-one salesmen: five at the newspaper office, six at the site, and another twenty answering calls for information.56 These jobs could be lucrative, especially for aggressive selling agents. Working on commission, salesmen could earn between $75 and $100 a week, or perhaps as much as $300 a week for go-getters as professed in a classified ad seeking sellers for Pell Lake lots. This was enough money to make it worthwhile for the peddlers to follow the newspaper resort trail.57
Readers were offered a variety of ways to obtain more information, all of which led to a face-to-face encounter with a pitchman. The ads contained clip-off, mail-in coupons that fed contact information to the eager sales force. At one colony it was claimed that every mail delivery brought a deluge of coupons and that hundreds of people besieged the sales office, leaving the large force “especially trained to take care of the crowds” almost inadequate to handle the many orders.58
This map was used by lot salesmen at the Post’s Chicago office to enable buyers to select their Pell Lake lots sight unseen. The wavy lines indicate shore line, nearly all of which shown here is actually swamp, a fact that the salesmen probably did not make known to the buyers.
Potential customers were also urged to call or visit the solicitation office at the newspaper’s headquarters, where purchasers selected lots from a map. At Laurel Lake, prospects were lured to the office through a cooperative deal with a local business. Potential buyers were invited to enjoy daily concerts played on the wonderful Orthophonic Victrola provided through the courtesy of Hopkins Piano.59 The sales offices remained open as late as ten o’clock to allow people to come after work hours.
Another opportunity to learn more about the wonderful subscription offer was to visit the site itself where prospective buyers were met with a swarm of salesmen.60 Weekend visits were particularly encouraged and people were invited to bring a picnic lunch. At Coon Lake it was reported that a thousand cars were at the resort on a Sunday. Some came on Saturday and camped on the grounds overnight while others arrived at dawn. The rush for choice lots continued far into the night with applications filled out by moonlight and automobile headlights.61
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Pricing all the lots the same, one of Bertram Mayo’s innovative ideas, was extremely effective in generating speedy purchases. Advertisements stressed that there were no favorites, lots were sold on a first-come-first-served basis, no lots were reserved, and the best lots went to those who bought early. The push to act in haste was reinforced with articles, such as one for Lake Erie Beach, bragging that records were broken when 3,200 lots were sold in the first ten days of the promotion.62 Here too, resistance was cleverly deflected with the assurance that desirable locations were still available as “many of the choicest locations were overlooked in the rush.”63
As a general rule the lot price was set at the start of the sales campaign and remained constant throughout. But there was occasional straying from the established pattern of advertising and several rules were broken at Knightstown Lake. During its debut year of 1923, ads for the colony ran continuously from May through early December. After a brief winter break, advertising resumed in February of 1924 with the announcement that lot prices would be raised to $68.50, a $10 increase, beginning May 1. The newspaper justified this change by pointing out that the colony now boasted a swimming pool for children, a golf and country club, a larger clubhouse, and an additional lake.64 Announcing the price rise several months in advance motived purchasers to take advantage of the offer before the price went up. When the lot price increased in May, ads for the resort shrunk in size and frequency.
In April of 1925, two years after the start of the promotion, another rare promotional step was taken at Knightstown Lake. In an effort to be rid of the remaining lots the Star printed an ad announcing a “most attractive cottage” contest. The builder of the best-looking cottage between then and June would be awarded five free lots to be selected by the winner from the remaining unsold lots.65 The announcement for the contest was the last ad for lots at Knightstown Lake. The Star never reported on the results of the cottage building competition. Except for one or two articles about the organization of the POA and its social activities, the paper’s involvement with Knightstown Lake was over.
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An expansion to the western part of the country was spearheaded by Arthur Smadbeck in 1927 and 1928. The formula was stretched from the east coast to the west coast with the establishment of Bolinas Beach in Marin County, California, in cooperation with the San Francisco Bulletin. In February of 1927 he acquired a 300-acre dairy farm on a mesa with steep bluffs descending thirty-five feet down to the ocean.66 The acreage was platted into 5,336 lots in the typical Smadbeck pattern, with the dense lot layout in geometric rows earning it the name “gridded mesa.”
Development of Bolinas Beach was handicapped by its difficult to reach location at the southwestern tip of a teardrop shaped peninsula. While only thirteen miles northwest of San Francisco as the crow flies, reaching Bolinas Beach by car in 1927 was complicated. The only practical access from San Francisco was by ferry from the foot of Hyde Street to Sausalito followed by over an hour’s drive on mountainous roads. Traveling from Oakland doubled the length of the ferry ride and the driving distance.
Nevertheless, Smadbeck promoted means of access combined with investment profit, claiming that lot purchasers would get a “real estate boost on account of the contemplated bridge across the Golden Gate.”67 Although the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act was passed by the California legislature in 1923, construction on the bridge did not begin for another ten years and the bridge was not open until 1937. A railroad which would have connected Bolinas to the populated areas to the east and to San Francisco was never built.68
Bolinas Beach had other troubles including a scarcity of water. Residents of the already established adjacent community of Bolinas considered the newcomers on the gridded mesa as inferior but agreed to share their water source at a price. However, animosity flared up when Smadbeck’s manager of the project, a man named Lowenthal, got into an argument with the butcher in Bolinas and threw hamburger in the butcher’s face.69 That ended the water arrangement and began a long saga of water procurement for Bolinas Beach that led to a 1971 moratorium on new water connections, a restriction that persists to this day.
Estacada Lake was a foray into the northwest in cooperation with the Portland Telegram. In early 1928 the Smadbecks paid cash for 200 acres fronting both sides of the Clackamas River thirty miles southeast of Portland. Now absorbed by the city of Estacada, the original colony is identifiable by the street names: Lakeshore Drive, Laurel, Juniper, Hawthorn, Dogwood, Larch, Poplar, Fuchsia, Endive, and Dandelion.
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With Skyland near Ruidoso, New Mexico, Arthur Smadbeck created a mountain resort town. Here there was no ocean and no lake, only the Ruidoso River, a slim stream of water at the bottom of a canyon. But swimming and boating could be replaced by gazing at stunningly beautiful mountain views and, with an altitude of 7,000 feet, Skyland offered a cool retreat from the desert heat.
In 1928 it took five hours to drive from El Paso through the rugged Sierra Blanca Mountains to Skyland. Alternatively, travelers could get within a mile and a half of the colony by taking a bus called the Pickwick Stage. The lots, available with a subscription to either the El Paso Herald or the El Paso Times, were described in an advertisement and an accompanying promotional piece in the Herald on April 4, 1928.70
Rental income and an increase in the value of the lots were not the only means of profiting from the purchase of land. The ads often emphasized that some parcels were set aside for businesses such as grocery and drug stores, confectionaries, refreshments, and other mom-and-pop operations. At Skyland lots were purchased for a tearoom, a lumberyard, an auto service station, and a barbecue sandwich place.71 A dance hall and skating rink and a shooting gallery were also planned.72
From available accounts, Skyland prospered as a colony, partly because, as the ads touted, “cabins can be built on level ground” and also because the land could be purchased outright avoiding the local practice of rental on a ninety-nine-year lease. Another western resort developed by Arthur Smadbeck was Clear Lake Shores in Texas, roughly midway between Houston and Galveston. The island city was platted in March of 1927 and the 2,400 lots were marketed with a subscription to the Houston Post Dispatch.
Like Bolinas Beach and Skyland, Clear Lake Shores also encountered access problems, at least temporarily. Weekend visitors from Houston were sometimes made to wait as long as two hours for the ferry ride across Clear Creek. While the transfer took a mere five minutes, the ferryboat could handle only four to six cars at a time. In addition, the approaches to the ferry were in poor condition. Many resorters delayed building cabins waiting for a bridge over Clear Creek to be built.73 In spite of these initial problems Clear Lake Shores turned out to be one of the most enduring of the newspaper resorts.
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Warren, two years older than Arthur, was the dominant partner of the two-person family real estate business, at least initially. Arthur would come into his own in future years, but while the brothers were in middle age, Warren was the main operator. It was his name that appeared on land transfers and records for the colonies up to and including the creation of Pell Lake. By then the scheme had reached its maturity and, for the most part, the older brother passed the development of newspaper colonies on to his younger sibling.
After Pell Lake was completed Warren was tempted by new challenges, Cuba among them. The Smadbeck family had long had a fascination with Cuba perhaps due to roots in the tobacco business. Louis Smadbeck’s father, Jacob, grew tobacco in Connecticut, probably the type that made good wrappers for Cuban cigars,74 while Henrietta’s brother, Joseph Freudenthal, produced Havana cigars at his factory in Sag Harbor, Long Island.75 Louis traveled to Havana with his wife and daughter in the last year of his life, and Warren Smadbeck vacationed on the island in 1921.76 Beginning in 1925 Warren was working to construct the Hotel Presidente in Havana, an impressive ten-story steel, stone, and brick structure that opened December 28, 1928.
He also took the newspaper deal in another direction, north to Canada. His first Canadian venture was Plage Laval, near Montreal, Quebec, on the banks of the Mille-Îles River. Here he used the same advertising copy and terms of the deal as at the Smadbeck colonies in the United States. Lots could be secured with a six-month subscription to La Patrie and all lots were the same size and the same price. The promised amenities included a waterfront park for residents, dressing rooms for bathers, playgrounds for children, wharves for boats, and a pavilion for dancers as well as tennis courts and a clubhouse.77
Plage Laval was followed with another Canadian beach development, Sandy Hook. Eighty kilometers north of Winnipeg on the western shore of the lake with the same name, it was a small development by Smadbeck standards with only 500 lots stretched along a mile of lakefront.
Ads for Sandy Hook began appearing at the beginning of August 1927 and required a one-year subscription to the Winnipeg Evening Tribune. The advertisements and the newshead articles applauding the development continued almost daily for a month, ending in early September. Ads resumed in the abbreviated Canadian summer seasons of 1928 and 1929.
There were some differences in the terms of the promotion for Sandy Hook. Lots had an average size of 50' × 150', with, according to the ads, many lots being larger. Presumably many were also smaller. Still, all lots were the same price without regard to location or size. The streets were not named for flowers but a clubhouse was built on the shore of the lake. A maximum of four lots could be purchased but there was no minimum. If anyone bought a lot before visiting the property there was a one-week window to obtain a refund.78
Warren Smadbeck had received early coaching on the promotion value to be gained by associating a business development with a benefit for underprivileged children, a lesson he employed at Sandy Hook. In 1893 at age eight, he and his younger siblings were credited with the idea of holding a fair and raising money for the Sick Babies’ Fund. The surnames of the other children who participated matched those of Louis Smadbeck’s real estate associates and the event was held at the Tecumseh Hotel, one of Louis’ projects. The name of the hotel and its Sherman Park location were highlighted in the news report, no doubt stemming from a letter submitted to the paper by Louis, with the intent of promoting the sale of lots.79
Contemporaneous with the debut of Sandy Hook, Warren Smadbeck scheduled a charity event intended to bring tears to the eyes, buyers to the resort, and money to the pocket. A circus performance for orphaned and poor children of Winnipeg was arranged for Saturday, August 6, just days after the appearance of the first ad for the resort. The Winnipeg Evening Tribune printed an article in advance of the affair telling how the New York multimillionaire would be playing summer Santa to the children by hosting the circus spectacle. The impressive event was featured in a follow-up article that dwelled on the delight of the children, giving Sandy Hook a double dose of publicity and exhibiting a rare departure from Smadbeck invisibility.80
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The summer of 1928 introduced yet another colony, this one in Sussex County, New Jersey.81 Sparta Lake sits at an elevation of 1,260 feet in a wild section of the state, surrounded by craggy hills. The resort developer Arthur D. Crane considered the location for resort development in 1926 but rejected the site as too remote and instead opted for the much larger Lake Mohawk. This preserved Sparta Lake for the Smadbecks to create a newspaper colony two years later with the Paterson Press Guardian.
The Sparta Lake colony is most notable for the ambitious activity schedule of its Property Owners Association. For five years following the formation of the POA in January of 1929, it carried on a continuum of social events including annual masked balls, plays, card parties, Saturday night socials, Halloween dances, men’s’ nights, organization of a Rod and Gun Club, dancing parties, water carnivals with performers and entertainers, and boat, sack, and pig races. These nonstop events funded road improvements, construction of a new pavilion, the hiring of a caretaker, installation of a new beach, and other community improvements.
As the decade was coming to a close the Chicago Evening Post sponsored a third resort in the Lake Geneva area. This colony was Interlaken, pronounced, as the ads instructed, “INTER-LOCK-EN, meaning ‘Between Lakes.’”82 Smallest of the Walworth County newspaper resorts it was bordered by Silver Lake to the south and Lake Wandawega on the north. Lacking an established name this second lake was known, at various times, as Kinne Lake, Otter Lake, and then Russell Lake after one of the farmers who inhabited the area in the late 1800s.83 It obtained the name Wandawega in 1925 when developers, subdividing acreage on the northern lake shore, decided that an Indian sounding name had more cachet.
Among the first structures to go up in this large, early development was the Wandawega Hotel which, by the time Interlaken was conceived in 1929, had become a popular place to find jazzy music, illicit alcohol, and a ready supply of girls.84 In addition to this attraction on the other side of the lake, Interlaken, on the southern shore, offered a handsome colonial-style clubhouse with a drive-up entrance arcade constructed on a promontory between Lake Wandawega and Silver Lake. But with two different bodies of water drawing the cottagers in opposite directions and the land bisected by a county highway, Interlaken failed to achieve a cohesive community atmosphere. Sales of lots were no doubt also affected by the beginning of the Depression five months after Interlaken’s opening.
Great Lakes Beach,85 eighty miles northeast of Detroit on Lake Huron, was also developed at the end of the decade. A 1930 ad proclaimed that the new summer resort was created by the Detroit Daily for its readers but there was no talk of purchasing a subscription. The advertising copy, stating, “All you have to do to avail yourself of this offer is to be a reader of The Detroit Daily,”86 hints that the newspaper collaboration was weakening.
There is one final newspaper colony to be acknowledged here. Woodland Beach, in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, was only four miles from Annapolis and thirty-two miles from Baltimore. Located along a stretch of waterfront on the South River, an arm of Chesapeake Bay, it was sponsored by the Washington Post. When promotion began in May of 1931, the initial advertisements specified that lot buyers must “subscribe for a limited period” to the newspaper with no specific subscription terms declared. Even this requirement was omitted in follow-up ads.
This seeming retreat from the requirement to purchase a six-month subscription gives warning of things to come. The Great Depression had begun at the end of 1929 and the developers and the newspapers were adapting their business practices to the changing economic climate. With the closing of the 1920s the ideal conditions for the newspaper deal were dissolving.
1. Mark Sullivan, Our Times 1900–1925, The War Begins 1909–1914, Vol. 4, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932, 88–93.
2. Marshall Hearings, 986.
3. Notice, New York Tribune, May 5, 1915, 3.
4. Marshall Hearings, 922, 932.
5. Honor Built Bungalow Ad, March 9, 1916, 6; Nickerson Glenn Building Ad, March 11, 1916, 6; Rohdenburg Ad, March 17, 1916, 7.
6. New York Tribune, July 27, 1919, 11.
7. Will Irwin, “The American Newspaper, XIV—The Press of Two Cities,” Collier’s 47 (1911): no. 18:13.
8. Will Irwin, “The American Newspaper, II—The Dim Beginnings,” Collier’s 46 (1911): no. 18:14.
9. Irwin, The Dim Beginnings, 15–16.
10. William R. Scott, Scientific Circulation Management, 17.
11. Lawson, Truth in Publishing, 48–49.
12. Scott, Scientific Circulation Management, 27–29.
13. Will Irwin, “The American Newspaper, I—‘The Power of the Press,’” Collier’s 46 (1911): no. 20:15.
14. Irwin, Will, “The American Newspaper, IX—The Advertising Influence,” Collier’s 47 (1911): no. 10:15.
15. Irwin, “The Advertising Influence,” 16.
16. For a thorough discussion of the intertwining of second-class mailing status with premiums, circulation, and advertorials see Richard B. Kielbowicz, A History of Mail Classifications and Its Underlying Policies and Purposes (Postal Rate Commission Report), July 17, 1995.
17. 37 U.S. Statutes at Large, chap. 389, sec. 2, 539 at 554.
18. Lewis Publishing Co. v. Morgan, 229 U.S. 288 (1913).
19. Lawson, Truth in Publishing, 90.
20. Algernon Tassin, “Dollars and Display: The Earnings of Advertising Men,” The Bookman (September 1910), 26, https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Bookman/SItHAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=tassin+dollars+and+display&pg=PR6&printsec=frontcover.
21. Sullivan, Our Times, The War Begins, 96.
22. Richard Kluger, The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986, 182, 190.
23. Scott, Scientific Circulation Management, 150.
24. Masthead, New York Tribune, January 3, 1915, 10.
25. Kluger, The Paper, 190.
26. New York Tribune, September 10, 1915, 14.
27. Notice, March 31, 1915, 5.
28. Marshall Hearings, 974–75.
29. Rosenbaum v. Sarasohn, 207. This was not the only time the Smadbecks were content to have the other party to an agreement compose the provisions—a business practice that often worked to the developers’ advantage.
30. Display Ad, Minneapolis Daily Star, August 20, 1925, 11.
31. See generally Presbrey, The History and Development of Advertising, 244–52.
32. “Star Readers’ Resort Grows,” Minneapolis Daily Star, August 12, 1925, 5.
33. The Meramec River Route 66 Bridge was constructed in 1931–32 to accommodate the rerouting of Route 66.
34. Display Ad, (Wilmington, Delaware) News Journal, June 4, 1925, 15.
35. “Pinto Says King Lake Well Water Is Unfit,” Omaha World-Herald, July 21, 1925, 1.
36. “King Lake Promoters May Dig Two Wells,” Omaha World-Herald, July 25, 1925, 8.
37. “Lake Has Water and Bullheads Again,” Omaha World-Herald, November 21, 1934, 3.
38. Display Ad, Minneapolis Star, August 5, 1925, 9.
39. Omaha World-Herald, July 16, 1926, 14.
40. See Gregg M. Turner, The Florida Land Boom of the 1920s, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.
41. Chicago Evening Post, May 31, 1926, 3.
42. Columbus Evening Dispatch, August 5, 1926, 1.
43. “Laurel Lake is Beautiful Spot,” Millville (New Jersey) Daily Republican, May 23, 1927, 1. See also Display Ad, Millville Daily Republican, June 2, 1927, 9.
44. “Work Progressing on Laurel Lake Tract,” Millville Daily Republican, May 16, 1927, 1.
45. “Temporarily Halt Work at Laurel Lake,” Millville Daily Republican, June 5, 1929, 1.
46. Display Ad, (Camden, New Jersey) Morning Post, May 11, 1929, 15.
47. “Buyers Flooding City With Bids for Laurel Lake Lots,” Millville Daily Republican, August 9, 1946, 1.
48. Display Ad, Philadelphia Record, 30–31.
49. “Laurel and Beach Club Lakes Were Incorporated,” Millville Daily Republican, November 26, 1929, 1.
50. Display Ad, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 8, 1919, 32.
51. Dunkirk Evening Observer, July 14, 1922, 6.
52. County Review, April 7, 1927, 15.
53. Display Ad, Minneapolis Star, July 28, 1927, 15.
54. Display Ad, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 20, 1928, 18.
55. “To Build Summer Homes at Much Lower Figure,” Buffalo Enquirer, July 29, 1922, 2.
56. “Sale of Lots at Lake Erie Beach and Building Operations Beat All Records,” Buffalo Enquirer, June 24, 1922, 4.
57. See “Charges King Lake Agent Didn’t Aid Kin,” Omaha World-Herald, July 28, 1925, 7; Classified Ad, Chicago Tribune, July 8, 1925, 33.
58. Bolinas Beach Display Ad, Oakland Tribune, May 12, 1927, 17.
59. Display Ad, Delaware County Daily Times, June 21, 1927, 4.
60. See “New Development on Pleasant Lake,” Elkhorn (Wisconsin) Independent, June 26, 1930, 1.
61. “Thousands Visit Daily Star Summer Resort at Coon Lake,” Minneapolis Star, August 10, 1925, 3.
62. “Next Week Will See Several Homes Begun at Lake Erie Beach,” Buffalo Enquirer, June 17, 1922, 4.
63. Coon Lake Display Ad, Minneapolis Star, August 10, 1925, 5.
64. Display Ad, Indianapolis Star, February 23, 1924, 10.
65. Display Ad, Indianapolis Star, April 18, 1925, 14.
66. San Anselmo (California) Herald, February 25, 1927, 7.
67. Display Ad, Oakland Tribune, May 11, 1927, 20.
68. Marguerite Kirk Harris, “Radical Environmental Protectionism in a Small Community: A Study of the Bolinas Water Moratorium,” (master’s thesis, Montana State University, Bozeman, 1977), 22.
69. Harris, “Radical Environmental Protectionism,” 21.
70. Display Ad, El Paso Herald, April 4, 1928, 8–9; “Skyland To Be Community Mountain Camp Village 135 Miles from Here,” El Paso Herald, April 4, 1928, 1, 10.
71. “Business Houses Being Built at Ruidoso Skyland,” El Paso Herald, April 19, 1928, 4.
72. “Skyland to Get New Dance Hall,” El Paso Herald, May 14, 1928, 9.
73. “Ferry Approaches Are in Bad Shape,” Galveston Daily News, August 23, 1927, 1.
74. 1860 U.S. Census, Population Schedule; Cromwell, Middlesex County, Connecticut, p. 38, dwelling 293, line 4.
75. Dorothy Ingersoll Zaykowski, Sag Harbor: The Story of an American Beauty, Sag Harbor: Sag Harbor Historical Society, 1991, 116.
76. Warren Jay Smadbeck, U.S. Passport Applications, No. 134875, January 27, 1921.
77. Display Ad, (Montreal, Quebec) Gazette, July 23, 1926, 6. Plage Laval incorporated as a town in 1932, annexed adjoining communities in 1950, and changed its name to Laval-Ouest in 1952.
78. Display Ad, Winnipeg Evening Tribune, August 2, 1927, 6–7.
79. “Over $4,500 Now,” Evening World, July 28, 1893, 4.
80. “Dr. Smadbeck, Millionaire, Sends Orphans to Circus,” Winnipeg Evening Tribune, August 5, 1927, 5; “Children Visit Circus, Guests of Millionaire, Dr. and Mrs. Smadbeck, of Sandy Hook Fame, Entertain 137 Tots,” Winnipeg Evening Tribune, August 8, 1927, 8.
81. Display Ad, (Paterson, New Jersey) Morning Call, July 25, 1928, 20.
82. Display Ad, Chicago Daily Tribune, July 9, 1929, 18.
83. “Would Change Name of Russel’s Lake,” Elkhorn Independent, March 5, 1925, 1.
84. Wandawega Historical Society, Elkhorn, Wisconsin: The Wandawega Hotel (Circa 1925–1942), accessed February 22, 2020: http://www.wandawegahistory.org/index#/the-wandawega-hotel.
85. The name was changed to Great Lakes Shores in 1936.
86. Display Ad, (Port Huron, Michigan) Times Herald, July 2, 1930, 22.