Santa Barbara Democrat's Masthead

Finally got some time to have a look at the masthead of the Santa Barbara Democrat from 1878. The Democrat started as a weekly in January, 1878, and then became a biweekly in March.

B.W.Keep only appears on the masthead starting with the April 3, 1878 issue, which is number 16. But he does appear, validating a claim that Fred A. Moore, the lead publisher of the Democrat overlapped with Keep there. Keep published the very first Santa Barbara newspaper in 1855, and it is through the overlap between Moore and Keep at the Democrat that the current News-Press asserts an origin of 1855.

Moore went on to found the Independent, which eventually merged with News, which is the paper that led to the `News' in News-Press.