Media in the San Francisco Bay Area
James King of William began publishing the "Daily Evening Bulletin" in San Francisco in October, 1855 and built it into the highest circulation paper in the city. He criticized a city supervisor named James P. Casey, who, on the afternoon of the story about him, ran in the paper, shot and mortally wounded King. Casey was lynched by the early vigilante committee. The "Morning Call" was established and began publishing in December 1856, and later merged with the "Bulletin" to become the long-running "Call-Bulletin". The "San Francisco Chronicle" debuted in June, 1865 as the "Dramatic Chronicle", founded by Charles and M.H. de Young aged 19 and 17.
The Chronicle (Willimantic)
Born in 1857, John Anthony MacDonald had learned the newspaper business at the weekly Windham County Transcript in the eastern Connecticut town of Danielson, near his birthplace of Brooklyn, Connecticut. A 1920 history of Windham described him as a “a promotor and a plunger, who took chances. He saved his money to go West and start his own weekly newspaper.” MacDonald's westward destiny took him all of 18 miles to Willimantic. He decided that the young city might support a second daily newspapers besides "The Willimantic Journal", which had been established in 1848 and would ultimately cease publication on January 27, 1911. MacDonald initially took a job in the printing shop of C. C. Crandall on Main Street. MacDonald's name inadvertently first appeared in the "Enterprise" on October 4, 1878, when it was reported that he's been badly injured when his hand got caught in Crandall's press. Early in the fall of 1879, MacDonald bought half of the "Enterprise" from Safford plus invested additional capital to purchase new equipment: a steam-powered press. the "Enterprise" then moved to the H.C. Hall building at 60 Union Street and MacDonald became its editor and Safford its publisher.