The Boys on the Milk Cartons.
Why we started using milk cartons to help find missing children, and why we stopped.
In the early morning hours of September 5, 1982, twelve year old Johnny Gosch seemingly vanished into thin air, while delivering newspapers in West Des Moines, Iowa. But he wasn’t the only child to go missing while delivering newspapers for The Des Moines Register. On August 12, 1984 thirteen year old Eugene Martin disappeared during his regular paper delivery on the south side of Des Moines.
Shortly after Eugene Martins disappearance, in September 1984, Anderson Erickson other Dairy began printing the photos of both Gosch, and Martin along with other missing children from the Des Moines area on the sides of their milk cartons, in hopes it would encourage people to look for the missing children. The practice quickly caught attention, becoming more and more common in the Midwest, and then eventually spreading nationwide.
Similar milk carton programs launched in Chicago, Illinois with support from the local police, as well as in California with help from the government. Concerned parents began pushing for a better way to keep track of missing children nationwide. In response to the growing concerns the nonprofit organization, National Child Safety Council began a nationwide program, called The Missing…
