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Register of the Smith Collection of Pacific Coast Newspaper Transcripts, 1856-1890
Mss187
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Table of contents
Title: Smith Collection of Pacific Coast Newspaper Transcripts,
Date (inclusive): 1856-1890
Collection number: Mss187
Creator:
Leroy D. Smith
Extent: 5.5 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.