christmas 1920: have yourself a creepy little christmas
Los Angeles Express, December 25, 1920. While the editor thought this was an adorable page three picture, it can't help but come off as creepy these days. Is this child having a nightmare? Is Santa secretly a giant demon who takes on the form of a friendly holiday figure? Was Fred Coffey really angry at the Venice Publicity Bureau and decided to come up with the creepiest image possible? Elsewhere on this page, readers were told that Los Angeles "contributed to more Christmas dinners than any other city in the world" thanks to food harvested in Los Angeles County. "It has been told by a California traveler and adventurer that in the trading posts of the South Sea islands he found canned products bearing the labels of Los Angeles." At the Los Angeles County Prison, jailer George Gallagher declared that "the 375 guests in his hostelry had one of the finest spreads in the entire city - not only the entire city, but in all the region west of the Rocky Mountains...