Latest news with #PhotosFromtheVault
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Remember when: Take a look into SLO County's past with these 7 stories
Stories by The Tribune journalists, with AI summarization San Luis Obispo County's past comes alive through photos, films, and oral accounts. The story of the Andrews Building shows how fires and changing building codes shaped downtown architecture. A rare 1938 travel film tours prewar landscapes and lost landmarks, such as Morro Bay's old hotel and undeveloped coastline. Stories like Photos From the Vault use newspaper archives and community memories to spotlight moments, from notorious red-light districts to historic heatwaves when entire towns relied on water hoses to cool off. These images and stories capture how people, places, and traditions have evolved across generations. Parts of the historic downtown building are more than 130 years old. | Published May 18, 2024 | Read Full Story by David Middlecamp In any era, water is the classic way to cool off, from the hose, a giant swamp cooler at the Mid-State Fair or a spray bottle. | Published July 6, 2024 | Read Full Story by David Middlecamp 'They were already laid to rest for the first time, and now we have to do it again,' a tribal officer for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians told The Tribune. | Published October 27, 2024 | Read Full Story by Ania Keenan Kaytlyn Leslie Photojournalist David Middlecamp reflects back on the founding of Photos from the Vault and what he's learned. | Published December 28, 2024 | Read Full Story by David Middlecamp 'One of my girlhood ambitions was to get right into the heart of the whistling demons,' one said. | Published January 11, 2025 | Read Full Story by David Middlecamp The 55-minute film includes visits to various landmarks and a circle flight over San Luis Obispo County. | Published March 29, 2025 | Read Full Story by David Middlecamp The photos show Morro Bay, Port San Luis and even Diablo Canyon ahead of its first official year of operation. | Published April 5, 2025 | Read Full Story by David Middlecamp The summary above was drafted with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists in our News division. All stories listed were reported, written and edited by McClatchy journalists.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
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.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SLO's street signs are infamous now — but they haven't always been. See how they looked before
Having been to a few civic-decision-making meetings over the decades, there are often two major impulses — often at odds. One idea is be conservative with public funds. Every dollar spent needs to be justified. The least spent is always the best choice. The other thought is if the wallet is being opened, people deserve something nice that they would find useful or like. And spending a little on prevention could save in the long run. The classic example of false economy in the city of San Luis Obispo was the 1938 fire that lead to the demolition of the classic 1879 city hall and fire station. The city's budget had been run on a shoestring for decades. There wasn't much money flowing into the region during the Great Depression, and the county had never experienced boom times like other regions of the state. But in retrospect, a series of preventable funding fiascoes lead to disaster — including not upgrading the building's faulty wiring or replacing worn-out fire hoses that burst three times. That story was covered in a 2019 Photos From the Vault column. Another example of debate over funding something that ultimately gets mixed reviews is street signage. A recent Tribune story outlined how San Luis Obispo got signs that look like the calligraphy on a J.R.R. Tolkien map. What did the signs look like before that? The previous generation of signs were brown enamel with white lettering and a no-nonsense highway-sign-ready, Series E font. What it lacked in personality, it made up for in quick readability. Prior to that, the street signs were also a block letter design, and the color scheme was a simple black-and-white. In the 1940s, the city had few street signs. The town wasn't that big and as mentioned earlier — it was cheap. Also keep in mind there wasn't any GPS navigation at the time. In May 1941, the city proposed buying 112 signs from the Lyle Sign Company in Minneapolis. If that did not satisfy residents who wanted additional signs, they were invited to put them up at their own expense. Price was $3.95 for a two-wing unit. The complete sign assembly consisted of a steel pole painted silver, topped with a white porcelain sign with black letters. Orange paint accented a steeple. The city splurged and bought an additional six signs more than the original proposal, according to a story in September of that year. The program would be shut down when the United States entered World War II in December and steel became a critical war resource. After the war was over, the city slowly began to fix the shortage of signs. A Dec. 8, 1948, editorial in the Telegram-Tribune, likely written by editor Robert W. Goodell, read: 'The proposal being considered by the City Council to install new street signs throughout San Luis Obispo is a timely move that will meet with general approval. Not only are many street signs in a state of disrepair but the recent annexation movements have added two large areas to the city, which call for expanded street markings. Within the city there are also many streets which were comparatively uninhabited at the time the last signs were put up but which now need additional direction finders for the convenience of a much larger population. San Luis Obispo streets are not the easiest in the world to locate in any case. The founders of this pleasantly informal community had no great regard for geometrical design. Not only do San Luis Obispo streets wander casually cross country but subdividers and real estate men of past eras have tucked in little streets here and there with numerous dead ends and twists and turns. It will be a hospitable and helpful gesture for the city to bring our street signs up to date.'
