“Somehow, the dreams of many individuals and groups meshed with old fashioned determination and hard work and the infant newspaper was cranked out on a rickety, old printing press in the basement of the Salvation Army Boys’ Club.”
July 1976 marked the first birthday of The Portland Anchor and that month’s issue saw a full spread of celebrations, including the above opening lines from an uncredited contributor. This short excerpt encompasses the origins of the community newspaper and captures the fire that’s kept it in circulation to this day. The Anchor’s founding youth saw their greater city begin to turn its back on their resident neighborhood, particularly through media, where Portland was termed “the cesspool of Louisville.” Utilizing the Boys Club on Portland Ave. as an unofficial headquarters, these civic-minded Portlanders undertook initiatives large and small to advocate for, inspire change in, and celebrate their community and the amazing people who belong to it. If the surrounding city’s news sources wouldn’t print the positives of Portland, they would have to do it themselves!
None of The Portland Anchor’s founders had any experience in journalism, let alone newspaper production. To continue the baby metaphor from the excerpt, you could say the Anchor was the result of a home birth. VOL. I, NO. I was printed by longtime Anchor President Gordon Brown in the basement of the Boys Club, surrounded by friends, neighbors, sponsors, and the paper’s other founders whose anticipation built with every passing second. After about 20,000 pages disaster struck, with the old printing press “chewing up paper and spitting it out in every direction.” Hearts sank, but the ever-resourceful Sharon Wilbert knew what to do, dashing out of the Boys’ Club and into the local Improved Order of Red Men where a social function was being hosted. Among the fraternal order’s members were Bill Smith and others with technical expertise on antique presses, who mid-celebration swooped in to “tinker, talk, and work magic spells on the old machine” until it resumed rolling.
Reflecting on the year since that eventful debut, the uncredited contributor would in 1976 conclude:
“The Anchor, if it had not fully grown up, was at least no longer a baby. While a year ago people thought a Portland Anchor was something you throw out of a boat, after a year people were looking for each month’s edition with anticipation. Here at The Anchor, we know people have come to expect growth and news idea from the paper. So we’re promising that in year number two we will work just as hard to present an exciting, readable, and valuable paper to the people of Portland.”
That promise was kept far beyond year number two, with countless people and groups contributing to The Portland Anchor’s continued success to this day. While not every one of these people could be individually thanked in this issue, we dedicate it to all their hard work, passion, and dedication to Portland over the Anchor’s 50 years. To every name that has graced The Portland Anchor’s pages, and to every set of eyes who has read them: thank you!
