Publication History:

Place of Publication: North Bloomfield, California (1859)

Frequency:  Only one issue known

Volume and Issue Data:  ca. February 1859

Size and Format:  Unknown

Editor/Publisher:  Unknown

Title Changes and Continuation:  None (see Miner’s News)

General Description and Notes:

According to Kennedy, North Bloomfield, a mining town on the South Fork of the Yuba River, did not have a printed newspaper in the 1850s, but the Hydraulic Press identified at least two manuscript papers, the Owl and the Miner’s News.

In the Feb. 5, 1859 issue of the Press, the editor reported that the Owl was North Bloomfield’s paper:

THE OWL.  This is the name of a manuscript paper published at North Bloomfield, and of which we have received a copy.  The owl was Minerva’s bird; but there is not much wisdom about this one.  We learn from its advertising columns that one gentleman holds all of the following positions:  Post Master, Express Agent, Justice of the Peace, Road Overseer, School Director, Gold Dust buyer and News Agent.  There’s honor for you.  Talk about republics being ungrateful.

B.P. Avery, editor of the Hydraulic Press, did not identify the editor or provide other details about the Owl.  No other references to the manuscript paper are known.

Information Sources:

Bibliography: ChesterB. Kennedy, “Newspapers of the California Northern Mines, 1850-1860–A Record of Life, Letters and Culture,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1949, pp. 25, 39, 511-12, 608

Locations:  None located, but cited in Hydraulic Press, Feb. 5, 1859