1974: Photographers Gather Around Fred Bottomer

In histories of the Cleveland Press, the writers and editors, such as kingmaker Louis B. Seltzer, have snatched the glory. But it was the underappreciated and fearless photographers who illuminated the humanity behind the pulpy prose of “the newspaper that serves its readers.”

For a group shot in February, 11 other photographers gathered round swashbuckling Fred Bottomer, who wore a bolo tie. In 1927, perhaps to defy his eponymous destiny, Bottomer climbed the flagpole atop Terminal Tower, braving the winds for a shot more than 700 feet in the air. It was his second feat of sky-reaching derring-do in so many years; in 1926, he lugged a camera with him for a flight on a biplane’s wing.

Bottomer was not alone in his daring. Tim Culek, in herringbone to Bottomer’s right, snapped the infamous close-up of Cleveland City Council President George Forbes shoving independent journalist Roldo Bartimole out of a council meeting. And Clayton Knipper, the Press’s chief photographer, kneeling to Bottomer’s far left, scrabbled across the Lake Erie ice in 1956 to capture a stuck Coast Guard cutter, still decked in his stately neckwear.

But the cameramen’s shutter-snaps were numbered. A few years before, in 1968, The Plain Dealer’s subscription numbers had surpassed the Press, and the ‘70s saw the Press’s slow decline. It was sold in 1980, and closed forever in 1982, placing a lens cap over many shutterbug legends.