Sac History Happenings: CSH gets Suttertown News archive

Sac History Happenings

News and developments in Sacramento and California history

December 13, 2011

CSH gets Suttertown News archive

Tim Holt.jpg The Center for Sacramento History last week announced that Tim Holt, former Suttertown News publisher, has donated the complete run of that defunct publication to the city archive. Back in 1994 Holt gave the Center over 2,000 of its photographs.

In its day Suttertown News was the "other" alternative paper in Sacramento. Holt began publishing in 1975 to champion community activism, vintage architecture and bohemian culture of the central city. In its first edition it opposed a proposed 18-story hotel at 18th and L Sts. and rallied against the growing "Manhattanization of Sacramento." As Holt recalled in a 1994 Bee op-ed piece:

The challenge to conservative Sacramento, and ultimately City Hall, would come from a downtown community inhabited not only by artists and writers but also by alternative-style entrepreneurs who set up crafts stores, restaurants, coffee houses and art galleries. They were joined by more solid, mainstream types, mostly state workers, who aimed for an elegant, House Beautiful existence in rehabbed downtown Victorians.

Suttertown News ended publication in Dec. 1993 because "we simply ran out of money" explained Holt in a Bee interview. It was tough for the paper to make ends meet and the competition from the expanding News & Review didn't help.

Holt subsequently moved to Dunsmuir where he is active in local politics and railroad history. He continues to write and is author of Song of the Simple Life, a collection of essays on sustainable living.

PHOTO CREDIT: Time Holt in the Suttertown News office in 1982. Sacramento Bee photograph by Leilani Hu

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California and Sacramento have a long, rich, vibrant history. And our region is blessed with an abundance of historical resources maintained by museums, libraries, archives and societies. This blog aims to alert readers to the latest developments in local/state historical education and research.

Send tips concerning upcoming exhibits, tours, lectures and meetings, as well as new books, magazine articles and online collections to the blog's contributors.

The Contributors:

Michael Dolgushkin

Michael Dolgushkin is Manuscript Librarian at the California State Library History Section. He is co-author of San Francisco's California Street Cable Cars and is a frequent contributor to the California State Library Foundation Bulletin. Contact him at mdolgushkin@library.ca.gov.

Amanda Graham is a Certified Archivist working in the Sacramento Room of the Sacramento Public Library. She earned a BS in History from Southern Oregon University and a MS in Information Studies with an emphasis in archives from The University of Texas at Austin. Contact her at agraham@saclibrary.org.

Pete Basofin is Director of Editorial Research at The Sacramento Bee. He previously worked at The St. Petersburg Times and Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune. Contact him at pbasofin@sacbee.com.

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