60 Years of 49er History

The Daily 49er is old. We're celebrating our 60th anniversary along with Cal State Long Beach this year. Although there are older student newspapers in California, the 49er is unique in that it has been published continuously since CSULB was founded.

 

In celebration of the past 60 years, we've decided to share some of our extensive archives with the rest of the community. You can read a full summary of the newspaper's history here, or even download the first edition of the Forty-Niner, published in 1949.

1950s

Cal State Long Beach was established in 1949 as Los Angeles-Orange County State College. The campus began with an enrollment of only 160, but by 1958 9,301 students occupied the flegdling campus. The campus, and the Forty-Niner, grew quickly throughout the decade. The earliest editions of the paper were produced on mimeograph. You can download a PDF of the first issue, published Nov. 11, 1949, here.

1960s

In the early 1960s, The Forty-Niner looked pretty much the same as it had in the '50s. Just a few years later, everything had changed. A few different mastheads graced our pages throughout the decade, color became used more often, and we became a daily newspaper for the first time. We also printed more "Extra" editions than we had previously, including one addressing racial tensions that ran on April 4, 1968. By a tragic coincidence, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated the very same day. The editors at the time, of course, had no idea what was about to happen when they were preparing the pages.

1970s

The 1970s can be seen as the beginning of the "modern" CSULB campus. Construction of the University Student Union was completed in the early '70s, and enrollment reached 32,993 in 1975. The Forty-Niner's design changed frequently, with several different mastheads being used.

1980s

The Technology in the 1980s allowed the Forty-Niner to expand and evolve. Special photography supplements, known as In Sight, accompanied many issues of the newspaper. Photos were common in regular issues as well, which were often as long as 24 pages. Weekend editions were printed regularly. Special editions were printed for holidays and other important times in the semester. Other special editions focused on particular subjects, such as the Port of Long Beach or the prevelance of street gangs. The newsroom slowly made the transition to digital technology, though much work was still done manually.

1990s

The Though the Forty-Niner covered campus athletics from its very beginning, some of the biggest sports stories came out of the 1990s. The 49ers football team at LBSU completed an undefeated season in 1990, but the program was axed after the 1991 season due to budget cuts and the death of head coach George Allen a year earlier. In 1994, the Walter Pyramid opened its doors for the first time. In 1998, the women's volleyball team became the first in NCAA Division I history to complete a season undefeated. Of course, the Daily 49er covered more than just sports during the decade. Much like today, stories on budget cuts, fee increases, and protests ran on our pages, and for the first time, on our Web site. The "On-line 49er", as it was originally known, began in the fall of 1994 as a weekly companion to the print edition.

2000s

The The Daily 49er has covered a lot of big stories in the first decade of the new millenium, from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to protests over rising student fees. The 49er itself underwent many changes during the new millennium. A controversy erupted in 2007 when a study was initiated to investigate the feasibility of publishing only online. For now, the print edition is here to stay. Although the Daily 49er’s print circulation still far outpaces our online audience, we’ve experienced huge growth on our Web site and other electronic distribution channels.