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Seattlest Asks: Anyone Heard of the Western Sun?

Western Sun You may recall that Seattlest recently moved to Rainier Beach.

The house we're renting came complete with a mystery: a newspaper box posted next to our mailbox.

We haven't subscribed to a newspaper for over a decade but, we know what a newspaper box is for. What we don't know is anything about the newspaper advertising on our delivery receptacle: the Western Sun. Google? Nothing. Wikipedia? Nothing, unless it's an unmentioned alternate name for the Seattle Sun. But we're thinking no.

We decided to ask a librarian via online chat at the Seattle Public Library's website. The only info they could find:

I've been looking at the SPL catalog and at a national database that includes the holdings of most large libraries in the world. There's nothing in Seattle. In the national database, there is a "Western Sun" newspaper based in Indiana from the 1800s to ca. 1926. There is another "Western Sun" based in Los Angeles around 1900. Maybe someone moved from LA and brought their newspaper box with them?
So that's our operating theory: someone loved their turn-of-the-20th-century paper so much they imported a newspaper box from LA, or maybe Indiana.

Unless any of you have a better suggestion. Ever heard of the Western Sun? Let us know. We may want to subscribe, since we have the box and all.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@seattlest.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By James in , on July 11, 2007 11:08 AM

Comments [rss]

  • tallngrounded
    When I was a kid in Lynnwood I delivered the Western Sun near my Lynnwood and Edmonds address. I think it is now the Herald although the Herald website does not mention it. 

    H Simon
  • mathematrucker

    Delivered the Western Sun newspaper in my early teens from 1973 to 1975 while living in Lynnwood. The paper was notorious at the time for saturating the area with kids soliciting new subscriptions door-to-door. We got a buck per, not too shabby for a 13-year-old at the time.

  • guest

    The Western Sun was the Edmonds\Lynnwood\Mountlake Terrace edition of The Herald. It folded in the mid 80's IIRC. I doubt they would have it on microfilm, just like SPL probably doesn't have the North or East Side editions of The Seattle Times.

  • All 3 of those paragraphs were quotes from Dona. Blockquote tag broke down.

  • Dona Bubelis from the library just emailed me with followup info:

    I found some additional information about a local newspaper called the "Western Sun." At one time the "Everett Herald" published an edition called the "Western Sun." Eventually this separate edition was folded into the "Everett Herald" and was no longer a separate entity. I found 2 references to it that say it existed in 1979 and 1980, but I haven't been able to find out when it began and when it ceased. It looks as though the "Western Sun" was not microfilmed as a separate newspaper, but it could well have been filmed as part of the Everett Herald.



    Seattle Public Library doesn't have the "Everett Herald" on microfilm, so I can't check the film to see if I can find a reference to the "Western Sun." The University of Washington would have the "Everett Herald" on microfilm, so you could check film at their main Suzzallo Library. And it's possible that the Everett Public Library might have more information about it.



    Rainier Beach is rather far from Everett, but perhaps there was some tie between the two for the previous owner of your house. I hope this information helps!

  • DMC seems to forget the plausible possiblity that a person living at the turn of the century in Rainer Beach moved from L.A. with a Time Machine. Used it to go into the future and find a plastic newpaper box for the Everett Western Sun, bring it back to the turn of the century and order the paper from L.A. (to show home-town pride). Later when the house was actually built, he put it up again to show the pride, but without an actual paper being delivered.

  • Plastic and moss, yes.



    And our operating theory wasn't one of those evolution-type theories that are scientifically accurate.

  • dmc

    Also, keep in mind that at least from the appearance of the picture, the mailbox is plastic. Finding something made from plastic, much less a vinyl-plastic compound that newspaper mailboxes are made from around the turn of the century would be kind of like stumbling across a circa 1910 microwave oven.

  • Interesting. I wonder why someone in Rainier Beach was subscribing to an Everett paper? Boeing? Long commute?

  • johnemack

    It was a small local paper back in the early 70's. Kind of on par with the King County Journal.

  • guest
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