California’s oldest weekly newspaper saved from shut down

The Mountain Messenger, California’s oldest weekly newspaper, was on the verge of folding, has been saved with an eleventh-hour bid to buy it. Published in Downieville, the weekly has been printing every week since 1853. Mark Twain even briefly reported for the weekly. Publisher Don Russell, who recently announced the weekly would go out of business, found a buyer to keep it alive. His friend, Carl Butz, is buying the 160-year-old weekly to keep history alive. A report mentions that Carl has set strategies for new revenue models to help keep the paper in print. Currently, The Mountain Messenger has no website or Facebook page.