Trading post newspapers bring people together

Abraham Villarreal
3 min readOct 9, 2021
Pages of people looking to connect with other people.

I like those free trading post newspapers you see in gas stations and restaurant waiting areas. They are the kind of publications that don’t seem like they have much to say until you open them and give them a chance.

In the fast-paced back and forth way we like to live our lives, many of us miss the old trading post newspapers. It’s not that they are not there, waiting to be picked up; it’s just that we seem to feel like everything we need is already in the palm of our hand. We don’t know what we don’t know because we don’t take time for things like the trading post newspaper.

Then, you find yourself waiting in line, and you see the trading post is piled high, thin folded layer on top of thin folded layer. On each side are thicker publications, coupon-filled, color-pictured, and seemingly more important. Laying next to its costly counterparts, the trading post newspaper feels small and insignificant.

I decided to give the trading post a try this week, just to see why so many are published and why they manage to keep on getting published. Printed in black and white and free of any pictures outside of the advertisements, the publication is full of words but doesn’t feel too wordy.

Each page has five columns filled with small classified ads. That’s it. The whole thing is classified ads. Some…

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Abraham Villarreal

People are interesting. I write about them and what makes them interesting.