Los Angeles Times

===Midwinter and midsummer===
====Midwinter====
For 69 years, from 1885<ref>{{cite web |url=http://socalhistory.org/bios/otis.html |title=Harrison Gray Otis Southern California Historical Society |publisher=Socalhistory.org |date=May 25, 2016 |access-date=August 8, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151002122248/http://www.socalhistory.org/bios/otis.html/ |archive-date=October 2, 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref> until 1954, the ''Times'' issued on New Year's Day a special annual Midwinter Number or Midwinter Edition that extolled the virtues of Southern California. At first, it was called the "Trade Number", and in 1886 it featured a special press run of "extra scope and proportions"; that is, "a twenty-four-page paper, and we hope to make it the finest exponent of this [Southern California] country that ever existed."<ref>[https://search.proquest.com/docview/163431815 "Our Annual Trade Number", ''Los Angeles Times'', December 18, 1886, page 4] ''Access to this link requires the use of a library card.''</ref> Two years later, the edition had grown to "forty-eight handsome pages (9×15 inches), [which] stitched for convenience and better preservation", was "equivalent to a 150-page book."<ref>[https://search.proquest.com/docview/163487649 "Our Annual Edition", ''Los Angeles Times'', December 21, 1888, page 4] ''Access to this link requires the use of a library card.''</ref> The last use of the phrase ''Trade Number'' was in 1895, when the edition had grown to thirty-six pages split among three separate sections.<ref>[https://search.proquest.com/docview/163679906 "General Contents", ''Los Angeles Times'', January 1, 1895] ''Access to this link requires the use of a library card.''</ref>

The Midwinter Number drew acclamations from other newspapers, including this one from ''[[The Kansas City Star]]'' in 1923:

{{blockquote|It is made up of five magazines with a total of 240 pages – the maximum size possible under the postal regulations. It goes into every detail of information about Los Angeles and Southern California that the heart could desire. It is virtually a cyclopedia on the subject. It drips official statistics. In addition, it verifies the statistics with a profusion of illustration. . . . it is a remarkable combination of guidebook and travel magazine.<ref>[https://search.proquest.com/docview/161410760 Quoted in "Highest Praise Given to 'Times'", ''Los Angeles Times'', January 28, 1923, page II-12] ''Access to this link requires the use of a library card.''</ref>}}

In 1948, the Midwinter Edition, as it was then called, had grown to "7 big picture magazines in beautiful [[rotogravure]] reproduction."<ref>[https://search.proquest.com/docview/165823792 Display advertisement, ''Los Angeles Times'', December 13, 1947] ''Access to this link requires the use of a library card.''</ref> The last mention of the Midwinter Edition was in a ''Times'' advertisement on January 10, 1954.<ref>[https://search.proquest.com/docview/166561544 "Bigger and Better Than Ever", page F-10] ''Access to this link requires the use of a library card.''</ref>

====Midsummer====
Between 1891 and 1895, the ''Times'' also issued a similar Midsummer Number, the first one featuring the theme, "The Land and Its Fruits".<ref>[https://search.proquest.com/docview/163529010 "'The Land and Its Fruits' — Our Harvest Number", ''Los Angeles Times,'' September 5, 1891, page 6] ''Access to this link requires the use of a library card.''</ref> Because of its issue date in September, the edition was in 1891 called the Midsummer Harvest Number.<ref>[https://search.proquest.com/docview/163522458 "Ready Tomorrow", ''Los Angeles Times,'' September 4, 1891, page 4] ''Access to this link requires the use of a library card.''</ref>