THE FLINT JOURNAL FILES / WILLIAM M. GALLAGHER William M. Gallagher photographed John F. Kennedy campaigning at Atwood Stadium in September 1960.

Pulitzer-winner generated plenty of stories

By Bruce Edwards
Journal Staff photographer

He was “a character.” That is the consensus from those who knew the Flint Journal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, William M. Gallagher, who died in 1975.

William M. Gallagher

And that’s how Gallagher’s son, Michael Gallagher, describes him.

“I’m still hearing Bill Gallagher stories,” he said.

The man whose photograph of the hole in Adlai Stevenson’s shoe captured the Pulitzer in 1953 left a trail of memories during his 27 years at the newspaper — from the newsroom to the police station to the fire hall.

Compile all the Bill Gallagher stories and you’d get a memoir both lengthy and very politically incorrect.

Gallagher was “cantankerous at times” and “dumb like a fox,” said James Rutherford, former Flint mayor and police chief. “He could swear better than me.”

Gallagher is remembered as the photographer who would get the picture that others missed — particularly in a news situation such as a crime scene, in part because of his natural relationship with police officers and the fire department.

“He didn’t like the people we didn’t like,” said Rutherford, who served as police chief from 1967 until becoming mayor in 1975.

Michael Gallagher said his father would plant cherry bombs at the police department with the fuse lying across a lit cigarette, then casually take a seat next to the sergeant on duty.

When the rest of the force scrambled in panic upon detonation, the sergeant would look over at Gallagher and say, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I know you’re up to something.”

Then there was the time Michael Gallagher said his dad was sent to cover a crime scene, crossed police barriers and hopped into a running police helicopter. Motioning for the pilot to take off as if he were the person the chopper was expecting, the pilot left for the scene. “He got pictures that no one else got.”

One such picture, of course, was that Pulitzer winner.

Retired Journal Editor Ralph B. Curry said in a 1976 article that Gallagher brought the hole-in-the-shoe photo to the city desk one day, laid the print on the table and said, in a poke at The Journal’s editorial leanings of the day, “I just finished this for the hell of it. I don’t suppose a Republican paper would want to use it.”

Journal outdoor writer David V. Graham, 53, smiles when he remembers Gallagher from the days when Graham was just a “punk reporter.”

“He was a boisterous, flamboyant character. ... A real maverick,” Graham said. “He worked hard at getting his photographs.”

Another longtime newsroom employee described Gallagher as hard-driving, hard-drinking, often cantankerous and always profane.

“Yet one of his favorite assignments was shooting his ‘little old ladies,’ — the people celebrating 80th or 90th birthdays,” said Dan Richards, a copy editor. “For public consumption, he always griped — loudly — with the assignment sheet in hand, but (he) always took extra time with them to chat and flirt.”

Graham said Gallagher’s natural appeal with people would win them over.

“He’d show up (at a story) and he was the star, but not because of the Pulitzer. He was never pretentious about the Pulitzer. You never heard about it unless you asked about it.”

Automotive writer Richard C. Noble, 59, remembers Gallagher from his childhood when Gallagher would visit Noble’s father, Bill, a Journal reporter. The dashboard knobs in Gallagher’s car, he recalled, had half dollars glued to them. He remembers Gallagher as a person of good humor who didn’t take things seriously. But, according to Noble, Gallagher had the ability of “getting at the soul of things, to zero in on the human condition.”

Michael Gallagher said his father had “an absolute dedication to the news. He always had a camera loaded.” He remembers his father telling him, “You never know when you’re going to need it.”

“Everybody loved dad,” Michael said.

“He played cards with Mr. Mott,” he said, referring to Flint philanthropist Charles Stewart Mott. “He was a great dad and a great son,” he said of his father who, upon seeing the lights on in his mother’s apartment late at night, would stop in for a visit.

“I loved being with him, watching him work and work with people.

“I miss him dearly.”

Staff photographer Bruce Edwards started at The Journal in 1978. He can be reached at (810) 766-6252 or bedwards@flintjournal.com.