Some Reporters, Editors Led Interesting Lives Before Going Into Newspapering

Close play at third, Fenway Park, Red Sox vs. Yankees, Boston Public Library

One of the things that made working at The Mobile Press Register exciting in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s was that many of the reporters and editors had led interesting lives outside of journalism before going into newspapering.

One such staffer was Mobile native and sports editor Pat Moulton. He starred in football and baseball at Auburn University before signing with the Boston Red Sox in 1927.

He later played with Atlanta in the Southern Association, Selma and Montgomery in the Southeastern League and Shreveport and Fort Worth in the Texas League. He managed the Henderson team in 1934 and 1935 before retiring to become a sports writer.

Moulton was a popular character in the Press Register newsroom. A steady stream of sports personalities Moulton had met during his professional baseball days visited the newsroom and many of them became the subject of his column, “Heard in the Showers.”

Moulton also liked to play practical jokes. One of the objects of his humor was Sam Willingham, the religion editor.

In the bottom drawer of his desk Willingham kept the “cuts,” or photographic engravings, of the community’s religious leaders. One day, as a prominent minster stood by Willingham’s desk with an article for the religion page, Willingham opened the drawer to pull out the minister’s cut. To his great embarrassment, the drawer was full of whiskey bottles.

Big Shots of The Mobile Press Register

The above photo was taken in 1944 in the publisher's office of what was then The Mobile Press Register's new building at the northeast corner of Government and Claiborne streets. The men in the photo were the newspaper's top management at the time. From left to right:

T. C. McLemore, mechanical superintendent. McLemore, who was also a shareholder, was in charge of the production facilities.

William Jefferson Hearin, Jr., general manager. Hearin began at the newspaper as an 18-year-old retail advertising solicitor and essentially ran the newspaper as co-publisher by 1965.

Ralph Bradford Chandler, publisher. Chandler had founded Scripps-Howard's Birmingham Post and put together the collection of investors who in 1929 started The Mobile Press, which absorbed The Mobile Register in 1932.

Joseph Alex McGowin, chairman of the Board of Directors. After the death of Mobile Press founder Joseph F. McGowin, his two sons Joe Alex and Leonard held and voted together their father’s shares in the newspaper. The McGowin family was deeply invested in the Port City’s real estate, financial, automobile and construction firms.

George M. Cox, executive editor. His father had worked as a Linotype operator at the old Mobile Register and his grandfather had been one of the owners of The Mobile Daily News in the 1890s. At age 11 in 1918, George Cox began hawking newspapers on downtown streets. In his teens, he became a copy boy after school and worked until 10 p.m. During the summers, he worked part-time as a reporter.After he graduated from Barton Academy in 1924, Cox became a police reporter for the Register and News-Item and eventually became the executive editor of the Press Register.