KING CITY — Historic King City newspapers from 1889 and 1890 as well as 1937 to 1948 are now available online through the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) thanks to a financial contribution from the San Antonio Valley Historical Association (SAVHA).
SAVHA has been working for several years to make old copies of The Rustler newspaper available online. Initially, the history group was able to donate enough money to digitize issues from when The Rustler started in 1901 to 1925. A year later they were able to pay to include the years 1926 to 1936.
This year the process allowed for another 12 years through 1948.
In addition, a small roll of microfilm with images of the Salinas Valley Settler and the King City Settler from 1889 and 1890 was digitized and uploaded to the CDNC site. These rare issues give a glimpse of what the town looked like just three years after it was founded in 1886.
Access to these King City newspapers can be found at the website http://cdnc.ucr.edu. The easiest way is to search by county, click on the Monterey County icon and then look for the link to the King City Rustler and King City Settler.
These issues can also be found on microfilm at the King City branch of the Monterey County Free Libraries. Original copies are on file in the archive room of the Monterey County Agricultural and Rural Life Museum at San Lorenzo Park in King City.
SAVHA directors hope to someday have all 121 years of The Rustler available online. Anyone who wishes to help with that process can make a donation to SAVHA earmarked for the CDNC project. Checks can be mailed to P.O. Box 145, Lockwood, CA 93932.
California Digital Newspaper Collection is working to make historic newspapers from around California available to the public. The website has optical character recognition (OCR) allowing those using it to search the site by family names or specific words.
CDNC is supported mostly by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library.
