170! Enterprise-Record traces its roots to small mining town from state’s early days – Paradise Post

A bustling town of approximately 2,000 people was situated along the banks of the Middle Fork of the Feather River. Folks living there owed their existence to one thing — the pursuit of gold, which had attracted thousands of people from throughout the world to this 760-mile-long slice of North America, a three-year-old American state of California.

If a person wasn’t actually searching for gold, he or she was almost certainly providing goods or services to those who were looking for the yellow metal.

But the small town, called Bidwell Bar — and alternately, Bidwell’s Bar, or just Bidwell — bustled with activity as its inhabitants (mostly men) sought to earn a living by harvesting this valuable metal from the river and the surrounding soils. It had raised the town’s prominence to such a degree that Bidwell Bar had become the seat of government for Butte County, just a few months earlier.

And, it now had a weekly newspaper, the Butte Record, which published its first edition the morning of Saturday, Nov. 12, 1853. The publication you’re reading this minute — either in print or online — is a direct descendant of that four-page edition 170 years ago today. C.W. Stiles & Co. was the publisher, and according to a box just below the masthead, operated “from the office in the Record building on Miner st., three doors east of the plaza.”

No detailed contemporary records of weather appear to exist for that period and area, but the Marysville Daily Evening Herald and the Sacramento Daily Union both reported rain in the region in the days just before their Nov. 12 editions. At approximately 900 feet elevation, Bidwell Bar would have typically experienced cool conditions to match the season. Daytime highs would have likely been around 60 degrees on clear days, with nights dropping to the mid- to low 40s.

We do know that a tragedy had occurred the previous evening near Bidwell Bar. According to both the Sacramento Daily Union, which “picked up” — republished — the story from the Marysville Evening Herald, a miner named George Boyle had suffered severe injuries when his “brush shanty” burned at around 4 a.m. Nov. 11.

The shanty “took fire and before its occupant waked, had become a mass of flame,” the reports said.

Boyle’s burns were such, according to the publications, that he “could not be expected to survive” and when people came to his aid and removed his clothes to treat the burns, he “was so badly burned that on removing his garments the flesh adhered to them, crisped as they were.”

In the first edition of the Record, however, were plenty of historical nuggets from elsewhere, including a piece about the opening of shipping ports in Japan, along with much description of Japanese diet, culture and society. Another article described Russia’s evolution as a nation. Yet another served as a humorous piece about a man who had become wealthy in New York by way of the “tea, cake and coffee business” and was showing off his collection of art and furnishings to his friends.

Suffice it to say, the original edition of the Record did not have much news in it, though it had lots of advertising as well as considerable content that originated in larger places such as Marysville, Sacramento and San Francisco. This is how news “traveled” to smaller settlements when even the fairly new telegraph technology was not a sure thing.

Subscriptions cost $7 for a year, $4 for six months and $2.50 for three months — “payable invariably in advance,” the paper explained. Those rates equal $252, $144 and $90, respectively, in 2022 dollars.

Why Bidwell Bar?

Hamilton — the original permanent county seat, established in 1850, several miles south of Oroville and not to be confused with today’s Hamilton City, which is eight miles west of Chico — had faded in importance. Significant mining activity usually equated with where the “action” was in the state’s early mining country; Bidwell Bar was one such place, in 1853.

Its governmental operations presided over a massive chunk of the state’s northern end, starting at the Sacramento River and extending all the way to what is today’s Nevada border — but in the 1850s, it was Utah Territory, as Nevada did not yet exist either as state or territory. Butte County was a massive piece of real estate, though it became significantly smaller when the state carved Plumas County from the eastern portion of Butte in 1854. Quincy became the seat of Plumas.

Tehama County took a portion when it came into existence in 1856.

Life was not easy in Bidwell Bar. In the first place, it was a difficult place to reach, as a ferry trip across the Feather River was necessary to get there from just about anywhere else, with “anywhere else” usually being closer to the Sacramento Valley. Bidwell Bar did, however, have the distinction of being near the end of the California Trail, which brought considerable numbers of prospectors to the area from the east.

Influential Bidwell Bar and Butte County solved the accessibility problem by constructing the Bidwell Bar Bridge, the first suspension bridge west of the Mississippi River.

Another problem was bugs. One visitor’s account described Bidwell Bar as having a severe flea infestation throughout the town.

Almost as soon as Bidwell Bar — established in 1848 when John Bidwell, Chico’s founder, discovered gold along the Feather River there — reached its pinnacle by earning county seat status, the mines began to play out. By 1856, things were slowing down just as mining and commercial activity was really picking up in Oroville, which had been called Ophir until the Post Office determined there was already another Ophir in California.

On the move(s)

Oroville became the county seat in 1856; it has remained there since. The Butte Record’s owners, like many other people in Bidwell Bar, realized the action was in the bustling town of Oroville and moved there in 1856. It spent the period of 1864-66 as the Oroville Union Record.

The newspaper moved to Chico in 1873, when citizens of newly incorporated Chico made a determined effort to relocate the Butte County seat from Oroville. The campaign preceding the election to determine the issue was bitter; the Butte Record, still located in Oroville, supported the transfer.

George Crosette, the Record’s editor, even relocated the printing facility to Chico, though the official place of publication was listed as Oroville. The official publication place switched to Chico in 1874, establishing the Weekly Butte Record.

Meanwhile, the Chico Enterprise was formed in June 1872, resulting from its survival in mergers with the Chico Weekly Courant, the Butte County Press, the California Caucasian — a virulent opponent to Chinese people living in the state — the Chico Weekly Review and the Chico Semi-Weekly Review.

The Enterprise was also descended from the Northern Enterprise, which moved to Chico from Red Bluff; the newspaper had formed in 1859 as the Tehama Tocsin in the small but important river port town of Tehama.

Crosette began to issue the Chico Daily Evening Record in 1877, becoming the Chico Daily Record in 1880. It acquired the Chico Weekly Chronicle in 1882 to become the Chico Morning Chronicle-Record.

It was at that time the Chico Enterprise reduced its publishing frequency to twice a week, becoming the Chico Semi-Weekly Enterprise. It became the Chico Daily Enterprise in the early 1890s, keeping that title until becoming the Chico Evening Enterprise in 1920.

The Record became the Chico Evening Record in 1928 to compete with the Evening Enterprise.

The arrangement stayed in place until November 1945, when the Evening Record became the Chico Morning Record. Enterprise publisher A.W. Bramwell and editor-manager A.H. Weibel merged the Chico Morning Record with the Chico Evening Enterprise to become the Chico Enterprise-Record, publishing the first issue under that masthead Dec. 6, 1948.