From California S Gold Fields To The Mendocino Coast

California’s history is rich and diverse, with numerous fascinating stories hidden in its past. Before the discovery of gold in the Sierras, San Francisco (Yerba Buena) and its surroundings comprised a sparsely populated frontier on the edge of the old Spanish realm. After 1848, the area rapidly transformed into a settled urban system as a tremendous influx of prospectors and settlers came to seek their fortune in California. A wave of gold miners, merchants, farmers, politicians, carpenters, and many others from various backgrounds and corners of the world migrated to the area at that time. Interrelated social, geographic, and economic processes led to a very quick metamorphosis from frontier settlement to a firmly established system with ingrained economic patterns. The development of San Francisco’s outlying region from a wilderness into a prosperous village and farming mecca shows how quickly in-migration coupled with economic diversification can establish a stable settlement structure upon the landscape. Otterstrom describes an intricately woven tapestry of interrelated people who were contributing creators of a wide variety of prosperous northern California environs. He uncovers the processes that converted this sleepy post-Mexican outpost into a focal point of nearly hyperactive youthful growth. The narrative follows this crucial story of settlement development until the dawn of the twentieth century, through the interconnected framework of individual and family ingenuity, migration trajectories, and diverse geographical scales. Multiplying individualistic experiences from across far-flung appendages of the Northern California system into larger and larger scales, Otterstrom has achieved a matchless historical and sociological study that will form the basis for any future studies of the area.

Great Escapes: Selective guides for travelers who want to find quick trips and getaways within a specific locale. They take away the drudgery of sifting through online and printed travel info by listing only the most worthwhile events, activities, and places to stay and eat. Great Escapes: Northern California provides at-a-glance trip ideas to major destinations such as San Francisco and Lake Tahoe and lesser-known areas such as the Gold Rush towns of the Sierra foothills and the isolated beaches of the Sonoma coast. Activities range from catching the sunset from the best spot on Monterey Peninsula to hiking to a Sierra Nevada lookout point. Carefully-chosen places to stay all have unique charm or historical significance, and dining options range from Michelin-starred restaurants to local favorites.

It is a combination of art and adrenaline by mixing the most beautiful locations in California with popular outdoor sports associated with the area. The book lists all the public lands in California unique to certain adventures with some commercial operations also listed. It is broken up into five (5) regions based on landscape and average annual weather. This helps plan what time of year to go. Wild caves and commercialized caverns are listed with some maps and pictures to assist in locating them. Popular rivers for rafting are mapped out with names and locations of the rapids and access points. Some well known rock climbing areas are classified by the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS) and V-Scale for bouldering. Popular wind sport locations are also listed.

A collection of essays on mining and economic development in California from the Gold Rush through the end of the 19th century. This is the second in a series of four volumes comemmorating the state's sesquicentennial.