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."
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.
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.
In the early 1900s, Sacramento became a battleground in a statewide struggle. On one side were Progressive political reformers and suffragettes. Opposing them were bars, dance halls, brothels and powerful business interests. Caught in the middle was the city's West End, a place where Grant "Skewball" Cross hosted jazz dances that often attracted police attention and Charmion performed her infamous trapeze striptease act before becoming a movie star. It was home to the "Queen of the Sacramento Tenderloin," Cherry de Saint Maurice, who met her untimely end at the peak of her success, and Ancil Hoffman, who ingeniously got around the city's dancing laws by renting riverboats for his soirées. Historian William Burg shares the long-hidden stories of criminals and crusaders from Sacramento's past.
THE WEIRD SERIES What’s weird around here? That’s a question Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman have enjoyed asking for years—and their offbeat sense of curiosity led them to create the best-selling phenomenon, Weird N.J. But why should they stop at New Jersey when there’s so much that’s peculiar, odd, and utterly nutty across the whole U.S.? So the two Marks—along with several other writers with a taste for the strange—have focused on some key locales, giving each of them the full “New Jersey” treatment. Spanning the breadth of the country, from New York to California, these are travel guides of a sort, but to the kind of places voyagers will never find on their everyday maps. Instead, they’re chock-full of local legends, crazy characters, cursed roads, and bizarre roadside attractions. So come along and join the fun: Some of what’s out there is disturbing, some hilarious, but all of it is unforgettably…weird. Praise for WEIRD N.J.: “They are the chroniclers of the creepy, bards of the bizarre…From abandoned asylums to colorful real-life characters past and present, to folk stories of ghosts, monsters, and aliens, Mr. Sceurman and Mr. Moran have created a journal of New Jersey’s unwritten history.”—The New York Times. “Enough with the head-severing mobsters of Jersey. The state is packed with far more evil than TV could ever invent—from satanic Klan rallies to time-traveling tree farmers. And Weird N.J. has the pictures to prove it.”—Rolling Stone. “Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran see their native state as others do not. For them, it is a demented Disneyland of worldly, and otherworldly, delights.”—The Boston Globe. “If it’s the offbeat, paranormal or downright weird that you crave…there could be no better place”—USA Today. Praise for Weird U.S. “Weird U.S. is delicious armchair reading. Who can resist an ax-wielding man in a bunny suit, a home shaped like a giant shoe, cannibal albino villages, midget colonies, passages to hell or close relations of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster?”—San Francisco Chronicle. “Weird U.S. is a marvelous work of entertainment and the basis for a truly unique vacation.”—Library Journal. “Kudos to Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman…This is the book by which future explorers will chart their road trips in pursuit of the meaning of this nation.”—New York Press.
Women discovered gold in California a full year before James Marshall announced his discovery. There have been repeated attempts to split California into two or more states. Wheelbarrow Johnny was one of the gold seekers who came west searching for gold. Instead, he built wheelbarrows and then went on to become one of the nation's great automobile magnates.
In the sequal to 100 Stories: The Lesser Known History of Humanity, John spent more time researching the annals of history to bring 100 more stories of things you likely never heard about (or didn't get the full story on) in history class. This second edition brings more of the same types of funny, intriguing, and downright horrifying stories over the last couple thousand years of recorded human history. Inside, you'll find interesting characters, fascinating war stories, and profiles of some of the worst serial killers that have ever lived.
