The ''San Luis Obispo Pioneer'' was the first newspaper published in

San Luis Obispo County, California San Luis Obispo County (), officially the County of San Luis Obispo, is a County (United States), county on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 282, ...

, between January 1, 1868, and December 1869. It was a weekly, owned and edited by Rome G. Vickers.David Middlecamp, "Racist Editor Launched SLO's First Newspaper 150 Years Ago. It Lasted 24 Months," ''The Tribune,'' San Luis Obispo, January 6, 2018, pages 3A and 5A
/ref> Vickers began the newspaper by announcing that it would be nonpartisan, but in the 1868 presidential election, he endorsed the Democratic Party ticket headed by

Horatio Seymour Horatio Seymour (May 31, 1810February 12, 1886) was an American politician. He served as Governor of New York from 1853 to 1854 and from 1863 to 1864. He was the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 1868 United States presidential elec ...

, thus losing support from Republicans and paving the way for the successful launch in 1870 of the

San Luis Obispo Tribune ''The Tribune'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper and news website that covers San Luis Obispo County, California. It was created in 1939 from a combination of three newspapers founded between 1869 and 1905, and was later acquired by the E. W. Sc ...

, which is still being published. Vickers, who came from

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

, was 26 years old when he began the four-page ''Pioneer.'' The newspaper was said to be racist in tone and Vickers' writing was "often reactive, mean, poorly sourced and boastful." After the paper folded, the publisher moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. The ''Pioneer'', did, however, publish the first

newspaper extra A newspaper extra, extra edition, or special edition is a special issue of a newspaper issued outside the normal publishing schedule to report on important or sensational news which arrived too late for the regular edition, such as the outbreak of ...

in the county's history, concerning the destruction of the coastal steamer ''

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

'', which ran ashore north of Piedras Blancas, California, in 1869.

References

Weekly newspapers published in California Newspapers established in 1868 Publications disestablished in 1869 1868 establishments in California 1869 disestablishments in California {{California-newspaper-stub