The Guild produces QUARTERLY newsletters about activities, acquisitions, displays and information of interest. On-line newsletters appear with links below. Click any link to download that newsletter.  If wrong newsletter appears, let us know right away.

2009.11 - "Remembering WWII 'Gold Stars'"

2009.09 - The Army Motor Convoy's trip through Livermore in 1919 and again in 2009
"September 5, 1919 was expected to be a gala day in Livermore because the U.S. Army Motor Transport Corps would be in town. A welcoming committee had been organized, the Boy Scouts would meet the convoy at the county line. The convoy entered the town on east First Street, turned onto Junction Avenue , passed the Duane Garage and continued west on Dublin Road."

2009.07 - "Americans Hit The Road." Americans began to move across the country by automobile as early as 1919. A number of communities across the nation set aside pieces of woodland where a traveling family could stay over night. Most had no conveniences. In spring 1919, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors considered establishing auto camps along county roads. But the State Board of Health insisted on minimum facilities. Auto parks were required to have a source of water, a caretaker and comfort stations"

2009.05 - The career of Edward Livernash, owner of Livermore's Herald newspaper.
"Three months after Edward Livernash purchased the Herald from W. P. Bartlett in June 1891, the newspaper building burned in an early morning fire. It had been insured for $2,200. Livernash had also spent $1,000 dollars for new type fonts and improvements of the shop. But Livernash was not in town the morning the fire occurred. That day he had been arrested at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. Disguised as a Negro woman, complete with black face, he had in his possession a can of chloroform and a container of prussic acid. The police were surprised to find they had arrested a man. His explanation for the chloroform was that he was a restless sleeper and had insomnia. As for the costume, he had come to San Francisco to play a trick on his wife."

2009.03 - Early newspapers in Livermore
"Small town newspapers in the 19th century usually were made up of four pages: the first and fourth were made up of boilerplate (patent medicine cures, hair dye ads and often a serial novel). Page 2 was usually editorial matter and Page 3 was local news (births, marriages, and deaths) and ads of local merchants."

2009.01 - Alameda County bifurcation and consolidation plan
"The Niles newspaper initiated the discussion in a published article pointing out that the three South County townships of Eden, Washington, and Murray were paying in taxes 20 percent of the total raised in Alameda County, but were not receiving commensurate services. The advantages of Bifurcation, proponents claimed, were that a new county could be composed of a territory of like interests, that there would be no rule by large city machine politics, that “water-front evils would be unusual” and, most importantly, that a lower tax rate would result."

2008.11 - By 1940 the war in Europe became more intense. After the fall of France, the U. S. Government began action to identify non-citizens by requiring them to be registered and fingerprinted. All local aliens over age 14 were subject to registration with the government by December 30, 1940. ... The Guild would like to speak with any local family whose members were affected by the 1942 government restrictions.

2008.09   - The Altamont Highway and Vasco Road on their 70th and 50th birdays, respectively. The Altamont Highway, I-580 between Greenville Road and Grant Line Road, turned 70 this year. In 1938 its completion was regarded as a watershed event in Bay Area transportation history, on a par with the recently opened Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, and Caldecott Tunnel. Vasco Road went by four names until 1958: it was “Vasco Road” north of U.S. 50 (now I-580), “Washington Avenue” from U.S. 50 to the outhern Pacific tracks (now inactive), “Taylor Lane” from the Western Pacific tracks (now Union Pacific) to East Avenue, and “Las Positas Avenue . . . .”

2008.07   - You can call it the Brother’s War, the War Between the States, the War of Southern Independence, or the Civil War – the fact remains that hundreds of thousands were injured. A number of those eventually lived in the Livermore

2008.05 - More from last month's newsletter, the description of homes on 2008s Legacy Home Tour.

2008.03 - Four homes on 'Old South Side' that were part of 2008's Legacy Home Tour.

2008.01 - "The Silver Screen", a history of the movie theater in Livermore

2007.11 - The Water Wars. There is  a reprint of a March 1877 article from the Livermore Herald describing a "Soiree Party" held in the Palace Hall

2007.05 - The Automobile Comes to Livermore

2007.03 - Baughman's Clothing Store

2007.01 - Rev. Martin Luther King's historic visit to Tri-Valley 38 years ago.

2006.11 - Building a Library: The story of Livermore's first libraries

2006.09 - Oil! In the latter quarter of the 19th Century, a farmer dug a water well and hit a gas pocket. Fearing it would distroy his crops, he covered it up. With rumors of the possibility of oil, explorations began in the valley.

2006.07 - "William Wallace Brier, Pioneer Missionary." Over a 20 year period, Brier organized Presbyterian Churches in Alvarado, Livermore (1871), Pleasanton (1876), Milpitas, and Red Bluff.

2006.05 - "Long-lost country school resurfaces on Mulqueeney Ranch." A little country school [Midway School] that operated atop the Altamont for 72 years closed its doors in 1946 and was never heard from again -until  February 2006 when it was rediscovered off Patterson Pass Road.

2006.03 - "Baughman's Clothing Store" is the oldest continuous retail-clothing establishment in Livermore, indeed in Alameda County

2006.01 - A Seditious Incident.  In 1917, the Herald warned "Whenever you hear a rumor of a disaster suppressed by the government, or an attack on the physical and moral welfare of American troops, you can rest assured that it originated in the evil mind of a paid German agent."