17205 Lahser Road
Redford Printing Company (Redford Record, Brightmoor Journal, Home Gazette, and more), Suburban Newspapers
During World War II, Floyd McGriff was a newspaper correspondent in Europe, mainly in England, covering what was happening in the war. He would eventually cover the creation and signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 before coming to America. I’m unsure if he was an American or European; however, he eventually married his wife, Ruth, and the duo moved to Detroit and purchased the Redford Printing Company.
Around 1929, the first structure in the complex pictured here was built. I’m not sure if it was for the company, but they were there within a few years of its completion. The building would later be expanded to run around a dozen local papers. Old Redford had only recently become a part of Detroit, having been annexed in 1926.
In 1932, Floyd McGriff’s Studebaker Touring was stolen from the corner of Lahser and Argus. At the time, the family lived at 17147 Bramell Avenue, a short walk from the structure pictured here.
In 1934, the Redford Printing Company was officially incorporated with $5,000 in capital.
On March 3, 1937, at 4 AM, the Redford Printing Company’s night shift employees all put down their work simultaneously for a sit-down strike. The printers wanted employer recognition of the International Typographical Union and a pay raise.
The workers were successful after meetings with McGriff and union officials, including Harry A. Reifin, president of the Allied Printing Trades Council. The workers were set to receive the standard conditions listed by the union and a 10% wage increase every month until full union wages were reached. According to Reifin, some employees would see up to a 55% increase in pay.
Ruth was always involved in the business, too. In 1937, she was the sitting treasurer of the Redford Printing Company, which led to her being charged with violating state child labor laws. The company was employing William Goulding, a 16-year-old, without parental permission.
In 1948, the operation was said to have 14 weekly newspapers. Despite the success, some felt the McGriff family used their papers to promote their political and cultural views.
In 1951, Floyd McGriff was sued in a libel suit by Deputy Superintendent of Police Kennedy Lawrence. The litigation stemmed from articles in three of McGriff’s newspapers (Redford Record, Brightmoor Journal, and Home Gazette) attacking Lawrence over his involvement in an investigation into Morrison and Bessie Wade, operators of the Society of Good Neighbors that began in 1948.
The Wade’s were accused of “converting $750,000 of their Good Neighbors Society’s funds to their own use,” according to the Detroit Free Press. They were convicted on two counts of conspiracy to defraud in October 1951 but appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court, where they lost, and eventually Federal Court, where they lost, too. Morrison got 4 to 10 years, and Bessie 5 years probation amidst a slew of fines. The Society of Good Neighbors continued after a director’s meeting at the Michigan State Prison in Jackson, where Morrison was held.
According to Lawrence’s suit, three of the McGriff family’s papers attacked him over his involvement in the investigation. McGriff was a friend of the Wade family; however, he stated that he did not attack Lawrence but the use of a one-person grand jury to indict a private citizen. He said that it was against the Bill of Rights and un-American. He was found liable in 1955 in the suit and, alongside his son, Jack, out of $20,000.
In 1959, the Michigan Supreme Court threw out the suit and ordered a new trial. The court ruled that Judge Chester P. O’Hara didn’t tell the jury that the McGriff newspapers in northwestern Wayne County were entitled to qualified privilege during the Wayne County Circuit Court case years prior, according to the Detroit Free Press. Qualified privilege is a complex defense but generally allows news reporters to speak freely so long as their statements aren’t spiteful or malicious. Like many rights, it can be abused.
Despite heavy case coverage early on, I haven’t found what happened after a new trial was ordered.
In the 1950s and 60s, the company would become more corporate but retain its localized papers. Throughout the decades, the business hired advertising, sales, and delivery drivers for their ABC weekly newspapers in the Detroit Free Press and, in 1967, started a newspaper that they believed was one of the first of its kind.
The Michigan Herald, a black newspaper, was backed by Floyd Mcgriff’s son Jack, who changed his last name to MacGriff. According to Jack, his father had twice tried to start a black paper and failed. MacGriff was set to own 60% of the paper but had no editorial input, or so was the plan in 1967. The other 40% was owned by Ulysses W. Boykin, the paper’s editor and former editor of the Detroit Tribune, another black paper in circulation from 1933 until 1966, and the Detroit Courier. Boykin’s wife, Nancy Smith, was a Howard University Grad. Previously, Boykin had written ‘A Hand Book on the Detroit Black*’ in 1943. His son, Ulysses Boykin III, would become a 3rd Circuit Court Judge.
*Certain words have been changed from this piece to ensure it isn’t removed from Facebook and is still served by Google.
I’m not certain how long the Michigan Herald was in print; however, I assume it wasn’t very long. The first issue ran 25,000 copies.
In 1979, Ruth McGriff died. I’m uncertain when her husband died, but I believe it to have been in 1968.
By the 1980s, the paper had been renamed Suburban Newspapers and continued to print locally and outsource printing for other organizations. That said, local newspapers were falling out of favor by that time, and Detroit’s population loss didn’t help neighborhood-oriented newspapers. With significant media companies snapping up the big players and making it harder for little papers to survive, it’s no surprise that rapid population decline put a damper on business.
In November 1986, Suburban Newspapers, Inc. and Redford Printing Company, Inc. declared voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The corporation’s most recent annual report is from 1989, and the company had dissolved by 1992.
I have not found any record of any other business operating here after the Redford Printing Company left. Compared to other parts of Detroit, Old Redford survived in the 1990s, but there were still numerous vacant structures, and vandalism and crime were issues.
Fast forward three decades, and 17205 Lahser Road, the structure pictured here, is set for demolition. The roof on the oldest section of the building with Lahser frontage has collapsed. The back portion appears in good shape and shows remnants of a recent squatter.
My favorite part about this structure is the still legible ‘Redford Printing’ sign above the back door of the building. I can picture decades of journalists walking in and out with their stories, warehouse workers clocking in and out, and delivery drivers pulling up to get the day’s papers.
Old Redford has a bright future, and it’s a shame that this structure can’t be a part of it.
