19-04-2025
Vital California newspaper archive is in danger of going offline. How you can help
History, when well researched and written is not just a desiccated collection of musty dates and facts.
It is the living context of how we got here.
Almost every week an email or phone call arrives offering critical and constructive responses to a previous Photos From the Vault column.
Frequently it is a request to help find information.
And judging from the thoughtful and kind conversations I have in the community, readers find the stories entertaining, edifying and important.
One of the bedrock sources I consult is the California Digital Newspaper Collection.
It is an indexed digital archive of newspapers across the state from the earliest United States days of California to about 1925. If the time scope of research is more recent, then a subscription to is another alternative.
CNDC is a free encyclopedia of California history. Every year the archive grows through grants and partnerships.
And today that vital resource is endangered.
Brian Geiger, director of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research at University of California Riverside writes that this year there is no funding in the budget from the State Legislature.
This will force CDNC to go offline.
The line item is a microscopic $439,000 within a budget of $320 billion. (Only 0.00013% if I used the percentage calculator correctly.)
No one else does this specialized work — and without state support, no one will.
It is the largest archive of its kind in the United States with 40 million pages of digitized papers from throughout California.
The site has also had to fend off bot-driven cyber attacks that crash it.
The large volume of information might be valuable to someone who is building an AI machine learning model. Defending the site takes extra effort.
Geiger asks that if you value this vital resource, please take the time to contact State Senator John Laird and let him know that CDNC is essential and needs to be funded. Senator Laird is our local representative.
If you are involved in research or a historical society now is the time to make your voice heard.
Now on to some history.
With all the bicycle lane construction in San Luis Obispo, I decided to take a survey of the early newspapers to see how far back coverage went and what types of stories were published.
Story categories included comic yarns, bicycle race results, sales and cyclists as a hazard. Conflict between cyclists and street traffic goes back to horse and buggy days.
There was a comic story in on the front page of the newspaper's second edition.
Unlike today when breaking news is reserved for the front page, in 1869, The San Luis Obispo Tribune assembled the hand-set front page type well in advance of the weekly print date.
It was almost always a reprint from another source with a long shelf life, sometimes credited, sometimes not. Breaking and local news ran on page two and three.
The story titled 'On A Bicycle' is in the style of a Mark Twain comic and it spilled over a full column. It follows a novice rider to an inevitable crash.
The Aug. 16, 1869, story concludes with the humiliated and bruised rider and writer reexamining his life choices.
'I ran over in my own mind the list of my enemies, being at last fully determined to send my compliments to the gentleman who cut up my last book, and with my compliments, the gift of the bicycle,' the cyclist wrote. 'Humbly and sincerely I trust he will not break his neck.'
By April 4, 1903, the Morning Tribune was putting local news on the front page and it ran a story advising cyclists to stay in the street.
Marshal Johnson Will Soon Give Notice and Devotees of Wheeling Must Look Out.
It is up to all of us now to break the pernicious habit of riding bicycles on the sidewalk.
The edict has gone forth, the result of a general awakening of the public convenience, and Marshal Johnson will soon publish notices to all bicyclists to keep off the walks, after which, look out.
Johnson says he will not be any respector of persons or of walks.
The sidewalk habit is getting altogether too strong among wheelmen and needs checking. Better begin learning taking the middle of the road before it is too late.
