Nevada County is webbed with some of the richest veins of goldbearing quartz in the world. First discovered in 1849 as placer gold washed into creek beds, hydraulic miners later used massive jets of water to melt mountains and free the precious metal. Rich lodegold districts such as Grass Valley and Nevada City were the most productive in California, and innovations such as hydraulic mining began here and spread throughout the nation. Whimsical names like You Bet, Red Dog, Rough and Ready,...

Vibrant and captivating Nevada City began as a gold-mining camp called Deer Creek Dry Diggins. The large gravel deposits alongside this creek reportedly delivered a pound of pay dirt a day by the fall of 1849, when A. B. Caldwell�s general store opened to supply this haphazard collection of tents. By March 1850, somewhere between 6,000 and 16,000 boisterous souls called it home, and the new town was christened �Nevada,� meaning �snow covered� in Spanish. After 1861, townsfolk took to addin...

The volume is divided into two parts: the first comprising the History of California from its discovery until 1848; the second containing a narrative of events, year by year, that occurred in San Francisco from 1848 to 1854, inclusive, with frequent references to occurrences in other portions of the State.

From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat and Facing the Mountain comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier“An ideal pairing of talent and material.… Engrossing.… A deft and ambitious storyteller.” — Mary Roach, New York Times Book ReviewIn April of 1846, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eigh...

This bestseller from a Pulitzer Prize finalist gives readers the complete untold story of the top-secret military base for the first time.**"Compellingly hard-hitting." —**New York TimesIt is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government—but Area 51 has captivated imagina...

The basis for the Golden Globe–winning and twelve-time Academy Award–nominated film The Revenant starring Leonardo DiCaprio.Mountain man Hugh Glass's harrowing journey 300 miles to civilization after being mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead is just one of the incredible adventures Spur Award–winning author Win Blevins explores in the New York Times bestseller, Give Your Heart to the Hawks.

"The Heritage of the Desert" is a 1910 Western novel by American author Zane Grey. The story revolves around John Hare, a young man who travels to the West to recuperate and start a new life. However, when he reaches his destination he is accused of being "Dene's spy" and must endeavour to avoid those who wish him harm. "The Heritage of the Desert" is a fantastic example of classic Western literature complete with animal heroes, loyal Indian companion, rustlers, thieves and much more. Pear...

Mary Austin's "The Land of Little Rain" is a lyrical exploration of the natural beauty and stark realities of the high desert of California. Through a series of evocative essays, Austin masterfully intertwines the landscape's physicality with its cultural and spiritual significance to native peoples and settlers alike. Her keen observations render the region's flora and fauna not merely as backdrop but as integral characters in the unfolding narrative, reflecting her empathetic engagement ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Featured in the PBS documentary The Harvey Girls: Opportunity BoundThe legendary life and entrepreneurial vision of Fred Harvey helped shape American culture and history for three generations—from the 1880s all the way through World War II—and still influence our lives today in surprising and fascinating ways. Now award-winning journalist Stephen Fried re-creates the life of this unlikely American hero, the founding fat...

Las Vegas—the name evokes images of divorce and dice, gangsters and glitz. But beneath it all is a sordid history that is much more insidious and far-reaching than ever imagined. The Money and the Power is the most comprehensive look yet at Las Vegas and its breadth of influence. Based on five years of intensive research and interviewing, Sally Denton and Roger Morris reveal the city’s historic network of links to Wall Street, international drug traffickers, and the CIA. In doing ...

The epic of the Port of Los Angeles was initiated more than 150 years ago by a handful of visionaries and entrepreneurs who exploited both fortunate and outrageous circumstances to transform a tidal mudflat into the world's largest man-made harbor. Phineas Banning and archrival Augustus Timms were among the first to realize the potential of the coastal dent on the map called San Pedro Bay in the 1850s. The bay's namesake village expanded from a backwater loading point for raw cattle hides ...

On a spring morning in 1914, in the stark foothills of southern Colorado, members of the United Mine Workers of America clashed with guards employed by the Rockefeller family, and a state militia beholden to Colorado’s industrial barons. When the dust settled, nineteen men, women, and children among the miners’ families lay dead. The strikers had killed at least thirty men, destroyed six mines, and laid waste to two company towns.Killing for Coal offers a bold and original...