Columnist Oscar Odd McIntyre (1884-1938)

Oscar Odd McIntyre was born in Plattsburg, Mo. on Feb. 18, 1884. He lived to be a well-known columnist, who used imagery to capture his audience.

Not much could be found of his life story. This is what I have compiled.

In 1902, McIntyre worked for the Gallipolis Journal in Gallipolis, Ohio. This is where he married Maybelle Hope Small.

Next, he worked for East Liverpool Morning Tribune in Ohio.

Then, he worked for the Dayton Herald as a managing editor.

Then, he worked at the Cincinnati Post as an assistant managing editor.

In 1912, he and his wife moved to New York. He worked at Hampton’s Magazine as an associate editor. This did not last long because the magazine closed shortly after he was hired.

McIntyre continued to freelance and work in public relations for some of the local celebrities, such as Florenz Ziegfield. His publicity work for the Hotel Majestic gave him free room and board. 

He, then, started to produce a daily column about New York life. The Bridgeport Post was the first to run these columns. 

It appeared in 26 different papers, including Journal-American. The Gallipolis Tribune ran it on its front page.

He produced this 800 word column daily and titled it “New York Day by Day”. “Thoughts while Strolling” and “Incident on Park Ave.” are a couple of titles. 

He wrote in a poetic style, describing his surroundings. “Sinister shadows slithering sibilantly through the threadable mews of Chinatown always remind me of the Nick Carter stories I used to read with Butch Klutch in the haymow of his father's livery stable.”

He usually worked right after breakfast. He would keep the blinds closed and the lights on because he did not like sunlight. By 5:30 p.m., he would have completed his work. 

The column soon ran in 508 newspapers in every state, Mexico, and Canada. He had about seven million readers. 

McIntyre also wrote monthly essays for Cosmopolitan for over 15 years. In 1929, he published his book “Another Odd Book: Twenty-five Selected Stories”. It contained a collection of his articles from Cosmopolitan. 

In 1935, he compiled his “New York Day by Day” columns into a book he titled “The Big Town”. 

According to Time magazine, he lived in an expensive Park Ave apartment. 

Because of his syndication, he made more than 200,000 dollars each year. He lived the high life and had many celebrity friends, including Irvin S. Cobb, Gene Fowler and Major Bowes.

This was after his and his wife’s hardships of moving to the East coast. At first McIntyre had a hard time getting editors to print his columns and barely made enough money to eat. 

“His wife patiently worked the mimeograph machine, licked the stamps, kept what records there were,” wrote Time magazine. Maybelle also acted as his business manager, arranging and dictating the terms of all his contracts.

McIntyre did not have children.

He turned down radio offers of up to 5,000 dollars because he thought his column might suffer.

McIntyre died on Feb. 14, 1938 in New York City. He was buried on a high bluff overlooking the Ohio River. He was 53 years old.

O.O. McIntyre Park District in Gallipolis was named in his honor.

Maybelle died in 1985 at the age of 101 in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.