
- 278 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
The author of Gold Rush Stories shares tales of the larger-than-life characters from the history of the legendary Sierra Nevada mountain range.
With its 14,000-foot granite mountains, crystalline lakes, conifer forests, and hidden valleys, the Sierra Nevada has long been the domain of dreams, attracting the heroic and the delusional, the best of humanity and the worst. Stories abound, and characters emerge so outlandish and outrageous that they must be real. Could the human imagination have invented someone like Eliza Gilbert? Born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1818, she transformed herself into Lola Montez, born in Seville, Spain, in 1823, and brought to the Gold Country the provocative "Spider Dance"—impersonating a young woman repelling a legion of angry spiders under her petticoats. Or Otto Esche, who in 1860 imported fifteen two-humped Bactrian camels from Asia to transport goods to the mines. Or the artist Albert Bierstadt, whose paintings Mark Twain characterized as having "more the atmosphere of Kingdom-Come than of California." Or multimillionaire George Whittell Jr., who was frequently spotted driving around Lake Tahoe in a luxurious convertible with his pet lion in the front seat.
These, and scores more, spill out of the pages of this well-illustrated and lively tribute to the Sierra by a native son.Frequently asked questions
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Foreword by Malcolm Margolin
- Preface
- The Swan of Erin: The Enduring Legacy of Kate Hayes
- Three Months Alone: The Ordeal of Moses Schallenberger
- A Broad, Hard-Beaten Road: Melissa Coray and the Mormon Battalion
- More Beautiful than the Original: Albert Bierstadt
- Fearful Symmetry: Native Americans in Early California
- Solid Gold Fishhooks: The Gold Lake Excitement of 1850
- The Spider Dancer: Lola Montez
- The Eternal Child: Lotta Crabtree
- Sacagawea’s Son: The Adventures of Pompy
- Just to Prove a Point: Fall of the Forest Monarchs
- The Ultimate Thrill: The Great Flume Ride of 1875
- Twenty-Three Miles in Seven Days: The 1911 Tahoe Tavern Automobile Race
- Curious Caravan: Edward Fitzgerald Beale and the Camel Corps
- The Forgotten Visionary: Theodore Judah
- Halfway to the Stars: Andrew Hallidie
- Hidden History: African Americans in the Sierra Nevada
- Dawn and Darkness: Gold Mountain and the Chinese
- Instruments of Darkness: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
- Power Couple: The Sargents
- Photographic Memory: Eadweard Muybridge
- The Unknown Architect: John Conness
- Glorious Starry Firmament for a Roof: Pioneering Yosemite Rock Climbers
- The First Light of Evening: The Folsom Powerhouse
- Magnificent Scoundrel: Lucky Baldwin
- Mingo, Bill, and the Captain: George Whittell, Jr., and the Thunderbird Lodge
- The Phantom Fountain: Thomas Hill
- The Little Tramp in Truckee: Charlie Chaplin and The Gold Rush
- Reel-Life Experience: Railtown and the Alabama Hills
- Soul-Consoling Tower: Manzanar
- Behold the Wandering Moon: The Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony
- Stoveleg Pitons and Cheap Red Wine: Warren Harding and El Capitan
- Like A Rollercoaster, Only Rougher: The Tioga Pass Road
- Selected Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author