The Los Angeles Evening Express was initially founded in 1871 under the management of a collective of printers. However, in 1875, Colonel James J. Ayres and George Lynch, then proprietor of the Los Angeles Herald, took ownership of the publication.
The new owner expanded and improved the paper, which proclaimed itself the “only afternoon newspaper with the Associated Press news service," as well as the "only Los Angeles newspaper that covers the rich suburban territory."
In 1886, Lynch sold his half interest in the paper to Ayres. Eventually, in 1900, Edwin T. Earl, a wealthy man from Red Bluff who made his fortune as the inventor of refrigerated freight cars, purchased the paper. Additionally, he established and sold the Earl Fruit Company and invested in the Union Oil Company.
After Earl's passing in 1922, his estate sold the Express (and the Hollywood News) to F. W. Kellogg and Edward A. Dickson.
In 1925, ownership of the Express changed hands again, as Kellogg sold his interest to Guy Earl Jr., Edwin's nephew, and Edward Augustus Dickson. Then, in 1930, business tycoon William Randolph Hearst and Paul Block, an East Coast publisher and Hearst business associate, combined Hearst's Los Angeles Evening Herald with the Express to create a single publication called the Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express.
The Evening Express building at 236-240 South Hill Street was demolished in 1980 as part of the redevelopment of Angelus Plaza. The building — owned by the Times had been converted to a garage years earlier.
Former joint owner Edward Dickson, a noted philanthropist, undertook the campaign to establish a University of California in the city soon after being appointed to the Board of Regents in 1913, serving for an unprecedented 43 years (the final eight as chairman).
Dickson helped discover the UCLA site in Westwood when the former campus on Vermont Avenue became too small. Known as the John Wolfskill ranch, the 383-acre tract was completely undeveloped when Dickson stumbled upon it.
A major contributor to the University, Dickson was known as UCLA's “godfather.”
Former owner Edwin T. Earl built a grand mansion on Wilshire Blvd. overlooking Westlake Park (as did newspaper rival Harrison Gray Otis), and the county purchased it in 1939. The historic structure with seven fireplaces and secret panels was used by the Southern California Historical Society and razed in the late 1950s to make room for additional parking for the County Art Institute.
A fire in 1957 destroyed the remains of the house, which once hosted President McKinley as a guest.
The enterprising publisher and real estate owner helped develop Bullock's department store in downtown Los Angeles. Together with Arthur Letts—founder of the Broadway department store—the pair sought a tenant for the new space at 7th and Broadway.
After Earl and Letts signed a 50-year lease on the structure, Arthur Letts picked former Broadway employee John G. Bullock to head the new enterprise and named the store after him. His nephew, Guy Earl Jr., owned KNX radio station and passed away in 1986 at age 92.
Original co-owner Frederick Kellogg died in 1940 at age 73. The Ohio native founded the Long Beach Daily News in 1923, and briefly published it as a supplement to the Los Angeles Express.
David Hearst (d. 1986) later published the Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express until 1960.
