Tales From the Crisp Lake Chronicle

The Crisp Lake Chronicle was an underground newspaper published in the early to late 1950's. It's circulation never amounted to much and the best I can determine from reading the now yellow toned pages it was a paper that printed all the news that was really unfit to print anywhere else.

Some might call it a gossip rag, others might say it was a collection of a bunch of stories that were meaningless to anyone other than the reporter, still others might say everything was made up and untrue. I on the other hand believe every word of what I read in the CLC and look at it as a little slice of Americana.

What is really strange to me is that other than my grandfather's collection there does not seem to be any record of it ever existing. The Examiner has no mention of it in its archives, the Jackson County Historical Society has no record of it among their catalog of the Inner City News, nor does the Internet give it any mention. It is like a conspiracy. It is a mystery.

So I feel it is my obligation to resurrect some of the articles and place them from time to time in my blog. Social historians will applaud me, my readers will gain some idea as to what it was like back in the 50's living in and around Fairmount, Maywood, and even Englewood but even more so on Crisp Lake proper, and some might even be offended if they have a thin skin about their ancestors.

The big mystery however is that in all the papers I have perused so far there is not the slightest mention of who the reporter was or who actually was the publisher or distributor.

The few old timers left in the old neighborhood claim they have no knowledge of the publication and change the subject when questioned about an event that was claimed to have happened.

My grandfather left a note on the outside of the box the papers were in that said not to open until 40 years after his death. A note in side the box, just opened recently, says that anyone reading the contents could do anything they wanted with the information contained in the CLC because most of the people mentioned would be dead or to old to read anyway.

First edition coming soon.