ALPINE SIGNAL, Markleeville, California, July 4, 1879 

* Very rare old West publication

 A very rare title that lasted less than one year, and only one institution has scattered issues. This is a volume 1 issue.
This small town is located at the "elbow" of California on the Nevada border. The population in 2010 was 210. Page 2 articles include: "The Oakland Ku-Klux" "The Eaters of Morphine" & "A New Chinese Bill".
Four pages, never-trimmed margins, new agent's stamp above the masthead, very nice condition.

Background: The July 4, 1879 edition of the Alpine Signal—a exceptionally rare Volume 1 issue published in the frontier town of Markleeville, California—serves as a vital artifact of late 19th-century American history. Published in the isolated "elbow" of California along the Nevada border near the tail end of the regional mining boom, the paper offers an intimate snapshot of a small settlement whose survival hung in the balance, a reality reflected in the title lasting less than a year with only scattered issues preserved in a single institution today. Beyond its pristine physical condition—featuring never-trimmed margins and an authentic news agent's stamp above the masthead—the issue's historical significance lies in its Page 2 articles, which mirror the dominant cultural, social, and political anxieties of the era: national debates on immigration policies in "A New Chinese Bill" precursor to federal exclusion acts, Victorian-era public health panics over opiate addiction in "The Eaters of Morphine," and post-Reconstruction racial tensions and vigilantism in "The Oakland Ku-Klux." Together, these contents capture how national discourse penetrated even the most remote pockets of the American West.