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Register of the Smith Collection of Pacific Coast Newspaper
Transcripts,
1856-1890
Mss187
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Title: Smith Collection of Pacific Coast Newspaper
Transcripts,
Date (inclusive): 1856-1890
Collection number: Mss187
Creator:
Leroy D. Smith
Extent: 6.25 linear ft.
Repository:
University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of
Special Collections
Stockton, CA 95211
Shelf location: For current information on the location of
these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Language: English.
Collection is open for research.
[Identification of item], Smith Collection of Pacific Coast Newspaper
Transcripts, Mss187, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections,
University of the Pacific Library
Smith, Reatha Parcell (1903-1976)
Smith, Leroy D. (1907-1979)
Barstow, F.O.
Smith, Homer
Stockton and Copperopolis Railroad
Congregational churches -California
Congregational churches -Oregon
Copper mines and mining -California
Roads -California
Railroads -California
Calaveras County (Calif.) -Description and travel
Calaveras County (Calif.) -History
San Joaquin County (Calif.) -Description and travel
San Joaquin County (Calif.) -History
Humboldt County (Calif.) -Description and travel
Humboldt County (Calif.) -History
Modoc County (Calif.) -Description and travel
Modoc County (Calif.) -History
Nevada -History
Oregon -History
Calaveras County (Calif.) -Economic conditions
Calaveras County (Calif.) -Social conditions
San Joaquin County (Calif.) -Social conditions
Newspapers -Abstracting and indexing -California
Humboldt County (Calif.) -Social conditions
Reatha Parsell Smith (1903-1976), daughter of a Carnation Milk field
manager in Forest Grove, Oregon, graduated from Pacific University in that city
(c1924) and taught school at nearby Wilhelmina High School. Her husband, Leroy
D. Smith (1907-after 1978), son of a Berkeley (Calif.) attorney and cattle
rancher, graduated from Pacific University (1928) and later taught high school
in Forest Grove, Oregon (c1930-43), where he eventually rose to the rank of
Vice Principal. After 1943, the Smiths lived in Berkeley, California. Mr. Smith
was a counselor at Alameda High School until his retirement (c1972). In his
spare time, Mr. Smith made bows and arrows, taught archery, and worked with the
Boy Scouts. The Smiths were also active members of the Berkeley First
Congregational Church. Retha and Leroy Smith had two sons. The eldest, Roger,
became a Congregationalist minister in northern California. Myron, the Smith's
second son, taught high school chemistry in Washington state. During their
California years, Mr. and Mrs. Smith spent many hours typing the contents of
19th c. California, Oregon and Nevada newspapers onto cards with the intention
of publishing a book based upon their research on the history of the copper
industry in California. They also volunteered their services as researchers to
the historical societies of several northern California counties and spent time
searching and copying documents and newspapers in the Calaveras County
Recorder's Office, the California State Library, the Bancroft Library and the
Stockton Public Library in the course of this work.
The Smith Collection of newspaper transcripts focusses on the decade of
the 1860s and is centered around those California counties which figured in the
copper boomlet of that era: Calaveras, Humboldt, and Modoc. However, the
material that the Smiths transcribed gives a reasonably broad social picture of
those regions and is not confined to the "nuts and bolts" of copper mining
alone. They have provided considerable tangential material on the
transportation networks, politics, religion, and social life of the greater
copper regions (notably that extending from Stockton and San Joaquin County
into Calaveras County). Holt-Atherton has created a subject index to the
newspaper transcripts which is available to the researcher on-site.