Historic newspapers · California

California historic newspapers: 61,418 free digitised pages

Everything below is what the Library of Congress holds online for California in Chronicling America, counted on 2026-10-07. The pages are free to read and searchable by name; an obituary or a marriage notice here is often the only record of a date before civil registration.

Titles with the most digitised pages

NewspaperYearsPages online
Imperial Valley Press (El Centro, Calif.)10,381
The San Francisco Call (San Francisco [Calif.])1895–19136,829
L'italia (San Francisco, Calif.)1887–19436,500
La Opinión (Los Angeles, Calif.)5,421
Sacramento Daily Record-Union (Sacramento [Calif.])1875–18913,519
The Record-Union (Sacramento, Calif.)1891–19033,012
Los Angeles Herald (Los Angeles [Calif.])2,194
The Herald (Los Angeles [Calif.])2,116
Süd California Deutsche Zeitung (San Diego, Calif.)1,907
The Morning Call (San Francisco [Calif.])1878–18951,789

Counties

  • Los Angeles 17,257 pages
  • San Francisco 15,399 pages
  • Imperial 10,606 pages
  • Sacramento 6,531 pages
  • San Diego 1,907 pages
  • Nevada 1,366 pages
  • Trinity 1,225 pages
  • Butte 1,203 pages
  • Placer 1,046 pages
  • Yuba 987 pages

Cities

  • Los Angeles 16,387 pages
  • San Francisco 15,399 pages
  • El Centro 10,443 pages
  • Sacramento 6,531 pages
  • San Diego 1,907 pages
  • Weaverville 1,225 pages
  • Oroville 1,203 pages
  • Nevada City 1,071 pages
  • Auburn 1,046 pages
  • Marysville 987 pages

By decade

  • 1800 to 1809 1 pages
  • 1810 to 1819 1 pages
  • 1820 to 1829 1 pages
  • 1830 to 1839 1 pages
  • 1840 to 1849 1 pages
  • 1850 to 1859 4,000 pages
  • 1860 to 1869 3,395 pages
  • 1870 to 1879 3,066 pages
  • 1880 to 1889 5,994 pages
  • 1890 to 1899 11,197 pages
  • 1900 to 1909 9,406 pages
  • 1910 to 1919 8,671 pages
  • 1920 to 1929 4,556 pages
  • 1930 to 1939 6,998 pages
  • 1940 to 1949 4,281 pages
  • 1950 to 1959 49 pages
  • 1960 to 1969 15 pages

Languages

  • English 46,997 pages
  • Spanish 6,646 pages
  • Italian 6,500 pages
  • German 1,907 pages
  • Japanese 891 pages

Ethnic press: Latin American, Italian, German, African American, Japanese

Search them by name

Provara's free records search sends one name to these pages and to every other public archive it can reach at once, and returns each hit with its citation. Search California newspapers by name, free, or browse the collection on loc.gov.

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Figures are the Library of Congress's own counts for its Chronicling America collection, fetched from loc.gov and refreshed daily; newspaper pages are public domain and the metadata is CC0. Provara states nothing here about any person.