Or, On searching for information in old newspapers. You might find something fun like this—

This is only half of the advertisement for the circus, from the Chico Weekly Enterprise for August 29, 1879. It goes on to announce:

Performing Royal Bengal Tigers!   Performing Bison! (as shown)

Performing Huanacos, from the Pampas of Patagonia!  Educated Zebras!

and A School of Performing Dogs!

Doesn’t that sound fabulous?

I have done my share of perusing old newspapers on microfilm, but that’s a tedious and eye-straining business. How much nicer to access newspapers at home on a computer, especially when you can enter a search term and actually find what you are searching for.

The California Digital Newspapers Collection is a treasure. So many papers! So easy to search! So easy to clip and save an article! And at last, the CDNC has added a Butte County newspaper. It now carries the Chico Weekly Enterprise for 1873-79.

Unfortunately, the coverage is spotty. For reasons unknown to me, only a few dates in a few months are there. For full coverage of the Chico Weekly Enterprise 1869 to 1907, go to Digital Reel at CSUChico Meriam Library.

Digital Reel has all the microfilm for all the various Butte County newspapers, from the Butte Record to the Weekly Mercury. That’s great. The only problem is that Digital Reel is difficult to search. If you have a date it’s fine, but searching for a name or a term will turn up with misses when you know there has to be something there.

I’m hoping that CDNC will be adding more Butte County newspapers as time goes by. What a boon that will be.

In the meantime, I enjoyed looking at the Chico Weekly Enterprise for August 29, 1879. Here are a few tidbits from the past.