News of Emperor Norton Reaches Russia-Owned Alaska in 1866
Between July 1865 and November 1867, Western Union ventured a project to lay telegraph cable under the Bering Strait that would connect Russian America (R.A.) — which became the U.S. territory of Alaska in October 1867 — with North East Siberia (N.E.S.).
A cultural by-product of this effort was The Esquimaux — a monthly journal/newspaper published in Port Clarence, R.A. (10 issues), and Plover Bay, N.E.S. (2 issues), between October 1866 and September 1867. The Esquimaux generally is credited as being the first newspaper published in Alaska.
The Western Union staffer who was The Esquimaux’s editor and proprietor had spent the previous five years (1860–65) working in various capacities at the San Francisco Daily Morning Call — which in early 1863 located to the 600 block of Commercial Street, where Emperor Norton took up residence sometime between summer 1864 and summer 1865.
Perhaps this made it inevitable that the Emperor would find his way into the pages of this little “tabloid of the tundra.”
Still. It’s a fascinating story.
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