The ''Alta California'' or ''Daily Alta California'' (often miswritten ''Alta Californian'' or ''Daily Alta Californian'') was a 19th-century

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " 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 fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

newspaper.

''California Star''

The ''Daily Alta California'' descended from the first newspaper published in the city,

Samuel Brannan Samuel Brannan (March 2, 1819 – May 5, 1889) was an American settler, businessman, journalist, and prominent Mormon who founded the '' California Star'', the first newspaper in San Francisco, California. He is considered the first to public ...

's ''California Star'', which debuted on January 9, 1847. Brannan, who had earlier assisted in publishing several

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into se ...

newspapers in New York, had brought a small press with him when he immigrated to California as part of a group of Mormon settlers in 1846 aboard ''The Brooklyn''. With Dr. E. B. Jones as editor, the ''California Star'' was the city's only newspaper until an older publication, '' The Californian'', moved to Yerba Buena (as San Francisco was then called) from Monterey in mid-1847. The city was about to undergo rapid changes as the California gold rush got underway. The ''California Star'' appeared weekly until June 14, 1848, when it was forced to shut down because its entire staff had departed for the gold fields. Its rival newspaper had suspended publication for the same reason on May 29.

Merger and name change

Later that year, Sam Brannan sold his interest in the moribund ''California Star'' to Edward Cleveland Kemble, who also acquired ''The Californian''. Kemble resumed publication of the combined papers under the name ''Star and Californian'' on November 18, 1848. On December 23, 1848, the ''California Star and Californian'' ran an article indicating this would be the last issue. In a business arrangement with the firm of Gilbert, Kemble and Hubbard, a new paper, entitled ''ALTA CALIFORNIA'', would be published at San Francisco, Upper California, the first issue of which would appear on Thursday, January 4, 1849. By 1849, the paper had come under the control of Robert B. Semple, cofounder of ''The Californian'', who changed its name to the ''Alta California''. On January 22, the paper began daily publication, becoming the first daily newspaper in California. On July 4, 1849, Semple began printing the ''Daily Alta California'' on a new steam press, the first such press in the west. In 1863, Albert S. Evans became editor at the paper and continued in that capacity for several years. The newspaper continued publication until June 2, 1891.

Other editions

''The Daily Alta California'' was also published as weekly, tri-weekly, and steamer editions. The ''Weekly Alta California'' was published every Saturday and the ''Steamer Alta California'' was published on the departure of the Steamers of the 1st and 15th of the month.

References

San Francisco chronology 1846–1849

External links

Samuel Brannan short bio
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Searchable archive at California Digital Newspaper Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daily Alta California Daily Alta Daily Alta Pre-statehood history of California History of California Daily newspapers published in the San Francisco Bay Area