More Little Known Tales In California History

Travel the Old Plank Road, or take a trip on the old Ridge Route over the Grapevine Grade. They were once treacherous but have been replaced by modern highways, Or, you might want to look through the eyes of two visionaries who knew what California needed and went to work to do it.The second worst disaster in California was the breaking of the St. Francis Dam, killing 450 people. And, readers will learn why the California poppie was selected as the official state flower.

This book has 41 different chapters on California's gold rush and development history. Read about The Lost Spanish Galleon, Pegleg Smith's Lost Gold Mine, Joaquin Murrieta, and railroad titans.

John Sutter, who left Switzerland to escape debtor's prison, came to California and built a giant land monopoly. Again, he became heavily in debt and died destitute. The entire Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys were inundated for 300 miles long and 20 miles wide by the flood of 1862. The cholera epidemic killed more than 1,000 citizens, including doctors and others who were caring for the patients. The Old City Cemetery is an exciting place. As docents are quick to remind, "People are dying to get in here." The docents know their job. It's almost as though they are trying to bring the city's cemeteries back to life. We love the epitaph on one headstone that simply reads: "See ya later."

San Francisco grew from a tiny burg of 1,000 persons in 1848 to its present-day population of 825,863. The city was founded in 1776 when Spain built a fort at the site of Golden Gate Park. After World War II, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counter-culture. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in 1960 and peaked out with the Summer of Love in 1967. San Francisco's China Town is the oldest and largest in North America. The city's famous cable cars carry riders up and down the steep inclines and to Fisherman's Wharf below. People watch as the fishermen bring in their daily catches each day at the piers of Fisherman's Wharf.. There's little that can't be found in San Francisco. The city's ethnic makeup is diverse. It's made up of whites, Asians, Afro-Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics. San Francisco has developed an international character that began with its founding and continues today.

The reader should not be conned into thinking Nevada is only desert and casinos. Nevada gained its statehood because of its incredible wealth in gold and silver mines. Many mining towns in Nevada are now ghost towns but interesting pieces of Nevada's history and well worth a visit. The state's geology dates back to the Stone Age and its tales of train robberies, lynchings and Indian battles are all explored here in this book.

For over four centuries, California has been an ever-changing landscape of innovation and revolution, triumph and tragedy. In Fascinating True Tales from Old California, author Colleen Adair Fliedner mines the history of the Golden State to collect more than fifty tales of famous Californians and their escapades from 1542 through 1940. For many, like James Lick, Leland Stanford, and John Downey, California was a place to strike it rich. Others sought freedom and a new beginning, including Chinese immigrants and African Americans, like philanthropist and freed slave, Biddy Mason. And still some characters just wanted to live their lives outside of society’s rules, like swindler James Reavis or the cross-dressing stagecoach driver, Charley Parkhurst. Readers will be entertained and enlightened as they take a trip through California’s colorful past.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Old Mission Stories of California" by Charles Franklin Carter. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.