Tag: Images of America

Discover the history of your hometown with Arcadia Publishing’s best-selling Images of America History Book series, crafted by local authors. Visit landmarks like the Yellowstone National Park, the Biltmore Estate, or Alcatraz Island without ever leaving your backyard. Hike to the rural Angwin village on Howell Mountain, time-travel to Chicago’s 1893 World Fair, or experience sports history at Fenway Park. Through iconic images of America, these local history books open a window into yesterday for eager history lovers.

The Twenty Mule Team of Death Valley (Images of America)

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The Twenty Mule Team of Death Valley (Images of America) - Author Ted Faye
The Twenty Mule Team of Death Valley (Images of America) – Author Ted Faye

The image of 20 mules hauling a train of wagons was once as popular as the golden arches are today. Everyone knew what it meant. It was the trademark of Pacific Coast Borax’s most famous product, a laundry additive called Twenty Mule Team Borax. The company’s advertising was dependent on one important fact: the connection between the Twenty Mule Team and America’s most notorious desert, Death Valley. From 1883 to 1888, teams of mules and wagons hauled borax out of the famed valley on the California-Nevada border. During those years, the teams were not famous; they were just a common means of transportation. After all, it was not the first time 20 mules hauled borax and it was not the longest or the most treacherous path. So what happened? How did this common form of transportation (the big-rig truck of its day) become transformed into an American icon? That is the story of this book.

About the Author

Ted Faye is a documentary filmmaker whose company, Gold Creek Films, specializes in stories of the West. Ted develops touring information, including audio CDs, signage, and brochures. He also helps communities to find and tell their stories. Ted was the historian to US Borax, and many images from this book are from the Borax collection at Death Valley National Park.

Book Summary

TitleThe Twenty Mule Team of Death Valley (Images of America)
AuthorTed Faye
PublisherArcadia Publishing
Pages

Death Valley Gold Rush (Images of America)

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Death Valley Gold Rush (Images of America) - Written by Ted Faye
Death Valley Gold Rush (Images of America) – Written by Ted Faye

From the mid-19th century to the 1930s, no place in America was more feared or mysterious than the stretch of desert on the California-Nevada border known as Death Valley.

While today Death Valley National Park is seen as a place of natural beauty and scenic wonders, there were once rumors of vaporous gases so toxic that birds flying overhead would drop dead instantly. One of the first Americans to encounter this dreaded land was William Lewis Manly, who left his Wisconsin home for California’s 1849 Gold Rush and who heroically saved those lost pioneers who would give Death Valley its name. Other pioneers in the early 20th century were Frank “Shorty” Harris, who made Death Valley’s biggest gold strike; the Hoyt brothers, who, in 1908, struck it rich in a place called Skidoo; and in the 1920s, a con man named C.C. Julian, who used the valley’s reputation to scam naive investors. There was a time when the entire country seemed to be consumed with news and tales of the Death Valley Gold Rush.

About the Author

Ted Faye is a documentary filmmaker, exhibit curator, and historical researcher on stories and people of the Death Valley region. Faye has worked with tourism boards on both the state and local levels to develop materials that tell the stories of their communities. He was a historian at US Borax, and many images from this book are from the Borax collection at Death Valley National Park.

Book Summary

TitleDeath Valley Gold Rush (Images of America)
AuthorTed Faye
PublisherArcadia Publishing
Pages128 Pages

Bodie: 1859-1962 (Images of America)

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Bodie: 1859-1962 (Images of America) - Author Terri Lynn Geissinger
Bodie: 1859-1962 (Images of America) – Author Terri Lynn Geissinger

Nestled amongst the sage-covered, windswept hills of California’s Eastern Sierra is the site of one of the most notorious mining towns of the Old West. In 1859, gold was discovered in the treeless hills northeast of Mono Lake. By 1879, Bodie was a metropolis of nearly 10,000 souls and was briefly the third-largest city in California. Excitement was short-lived, however, and word soon spread that the mines had reached peak production. An exodus began, but contrary to popular belief, Bodie was never totally abandoned. People continued living in this curious and beautiful place throughout the 1950s, and in 1962, the California State Parks system purchased the town site. Now stabilized against the elements, Bodie is today known as the largest unrestored ghost town in the West.

Author Terri Lynn Geissinger, a local historian, tour guide, and interpreter at Bodie State Historic Park, collects the oral histories of Bodie’s denizens. With extensive experience in educational lectures, she is dedicated to preserving this town’s past for future generations. Geissinger collected the stirring images in this volume from the Bodie State Historic Park Archive, the Mono County Museum, and various families with roots in this remarkable place.

Book Summary

TitleBodie: 1859-1962 (Images of America)
AuthorTerri Lynn Geissinger
PublisherArcadia Publishing
Pages128 Pages

Manzanar (Images of America)

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Manzanar (Images of America) by Jane Wehrey
Manzanar (Images of America) by Jane Wehrey

Through a collection of vintage photographs, the Images of America series allows readers to explore the history that makes each city, town, or state unique.

East of the rugged Sierra Nevada in California’s Owens Valley lies Manzanar. Founded in 1910 as a fruit-growing colony, it was named in Spanish for the fragrant apple orchards that once filled its spectacularly scenic landscape. Owens Valley Paiute lived there first, followed by white homesteaders and ranchers. But with the onset of World War II came a new identity as the first of 10 “relocation centers” hastily built in 1942 to house 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens, removed from the West Coast. In the face of upheaval and loss, Manzanar’s 10,000 confined residents created parks, gardens, and a functioning wartime community within the camp’s barbed-wire-enclosed square mile of flimsy barracks.
Today Manzanar National Historic Site commemorates this and all of Manzanar’s unique communities.

About the Author

Author Jane Wehrey, a historian and Owens Valley native, also wrote Voices From This Long Brown Land: Oral Recollections of Owens Valley Lives and Manzanar Pasts and has been a consultant, park ranger, and exhibit writer at Manzanar National Historic Site. For this pictorial odyssey through Manzanar’s past, she compiled images from private and museum archives and from an extraordinary wartime record that includes photographs by Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and former Manzanar internee Toyo Miyatake.

Book Summary

TitleManzanar (Images of America)
AuthorJane Wehrey
PublisherArcadia Publishing
Pages128 Pages

Scotty’s Castle (Images of America)

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Scotty's Castle (Images of America) - Author Robert P. Palazzo
Scotty’s Castle (Images of America) – Author Robert P. Palazzo

Scotty’s Castle is a study in contrasts, much like its setting in Death Valley. While the castle is known worldwide and has been visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists, many myths persist. It is not a castle, nor was it owned by Walter E. Scott, known as Death Valley Scotty. But the Spanish-style hacienda, also known as Death Valley Ranch, has always been linked to Scott. This book explores the fascinating history of Death Valley Scotty, Albert and Bessie Johnson (the true owners and builders of the castle), and the castle itself from construction to private living quarters to a tourist facility owned and operated by the National Park Service.”

About the Author

Robert P. Palazzo, Death Valley scholar and lifetime member of the area’s natural history association, evokes here in vintage imagery a stark, barren, desolate wasteland that gradually became one of the West’s most iconic destinations. Tapping his extensive private collection of rare photographs, Palazzo shows Death Valley’s geological features, notable personalities, industries, mysteries, and tourism. Though the area has changed little over the last 150 years, the harsh conditions have erased much of the evidence of human occupation. That rare visual record is preserved in these pages.

Book Summary

TitleScotty’s Castle (Images of America)
AuthorRobert P. Palazzo
PublisherArcadia Publishing
Pages128 Pages