Background
Charles E. Van Loan was boron on June 29, 1876, in San Jose, California, United States. He was a son of Richard and Emma J. (Blodgett) Van Loan.
Charles E. Van Loan was boron on June 29, 1876, in San Jose, California, United States. He was a son of Richard and Emma J. (Blodgett) Van Loan.
Charles E. Van Loan started his career as a short-story writer and journalist. He wrote about sports while working as a secretary in a meat-packing house. In 1904 he became a sports editor in the Los Angeles Morning Herald and held this post until 1907. In 1907 Van Loan took up a post of a sports writer at the Denver Post and in 1909 he took up the same post in the New York American where he worked until 1911. In 1914 he started to work as a sports writer in Saturday Evening Post and in 1918 became an associate editor and held this post until his death.
Charles E. Van Loan published his first book The Big League in 1911. Later he wrote such books as Inside The Ropes, The Lucky Seventh: Tales of the Big League, Buck Parvin and the Movies: Stories of the Moving Picture Game and Taking the Count: Prize Ring Stories. He also was a contributor to periodicals, including Outing Magazine, All-Story, Weekly, Munsey’s Magazine, Popular Magazine, Collier’s, Munsey’s Magazine, and American Magazine.
Quotes from others about the person
Hugh Fullerton: "Van is dead and sports in America have lost their greatest interpreter, and fighters, ballplayers and athletes of all grades have lost their best friend."
Critic for the New York Times: "Mr. Van Loan knows baseball from backstop to field fence, and he has the breezy newspaper style which is necessary to make baseball reading worth while."
Charles E. Van Loan married Emma C. Lenz on November 20, 1902. The marriage produced two children.