Needles has a population of two thousand souls. It is a mine outfitting town, furnishing supplies for a large and rich gold-mining district north of that locality. The _Needles' Eye_, which is an eight-page journal, is a wide-awake organ owned, printed, and edited by L. V. Root, a native of Michigan, but a resident of the Southwest since 1892. He formerly edited the _New Mexico Gleaner_ and is familiar with frontier journalism. His paper is devoted to the local interests of the town and to the mining districts of that region.
[Illustration: YEAR-OLD WILLOW TREES AT INTERNATIONAL LINE]
Randsburg is a typical mining town with desert accessories. It is the chief town of the gold-mining district known as the "American Rand," and has but one rival in the district, Johannesburg, which is close to it in size and importance, but which has not yet arrived at the dignity of a newspaper.
The _Miner_ is a four-page weekly devoted to the news of the mines and to local items. It has few features of interest outside the locality in which it is published.
In the Colorado Desert journalism attains an unusual degree of uniqueness. Both papers published in that region are printed below the level of the sea.
The _Submarine_ has the distinction of being the first paper in the world to be printed below the level of the sea. It is still unique in that it is the "lowest down" of any paper in the world. In order to hold this record the editor and proprietor, Randolph R. Freeman, was obliged to move to a new locality a few months after establishing his paper in the desert.
In 1900, the first paper to be printed below sea-level was issued by Freeman at Indio, a station in the desert on the line of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Indio has a depression of twenty-two feet below the level of the sea.
Later, the Imperial irrigation canal was started across the desert from the Colorado River, and the town of Imperial had its birth. Then the _Press_ sprang into existence and was printed in an office situated sixty-five feet below the ocean's level. The _Submarine_ thus lost double prestige, for it was no longer the only paper published below the level of the sea, neither was it the "most low down newspaper on earth," as the publisher announced in his prospectus.