California

Name: Lost Department Stores of San Francisco
Brand: Anne Evers Hitz
SKU: 9781467140713
Price: 16.49 USD
Availability: InStock

Plan all your California getaways with our Golden State catalog. Whip up the coast on the PCH to old San Francisco, where Gold Rush fever is slow to fade. Leave some flowers for Cecil B. DeMille and Johnny Ramone at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Get a progress report on the receding waters of the Salton Sea and the expanding minds in Northridge. From the fertile fields of Nevada County to the Venice Beach Boardwalk, experience the largesse and diversity of California's history with our California history books. [View all California books]

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Lost Department Stores of San Francisco

Sacramento

Kaiser Steel, Fontana

Bullock's Department Store

South Pasadena's Raymond Hotel

The Harris Company

Max Factor and Hollywood

Occidental

Nevada County Wine

Monterey's Hotel del Monte

Lost Department Stores of San Francisco

9781467140713

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

In the late nineteenth century, San Francisco's merchant princes built grand stores for a booming city, each with its own niche. For the eager clientele, a trip downtown meant dressing up--hats, gloves and stockings required--and going to Blum's for Coffee Crunch cake or Townsend's for creamed spinach. The I. Magnin empire catered to a selective upper-class clientele, while middle-class shoppers loved the Emporium department store with its Bargain Basement and Santa for the kids. Gump's defined good taste, the City of Paris satisfied desires for anything French and edgy, youth-oriented Joseph Magnin ensnared the younger shoppers with the latest trends. Join author Anne Evers Hitz as she looks back at the colorful personalities that created six major stores and defined shopping in San Francisco.

Sacramento

9781467103466

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Going back to its Native American origins, Sacramento has withstood flood, fire, and plague to honestly earn the moniker Urbs Indomita or "Indomitable City." Such grit--enhanced by an unmatched embrace of diversity and the strength that comes with it--has powered the Sacramento area's role as gold rush epicenter, railroading Goliath, purveyor of hydroelectric power, world war and Cold War arsenal, agricultural hub, and policy center for one of the nation's most innovative states. Truly, the impact of the Capital City extends so much farther than the Central Valley. It is through exploring the pages within that the reader will truly understand why, as stated by Sacramento historian and developer Gregg Lukenbill, "America may have been born in Philadelphia, but the American West was born in Sacramento."

Kaiser Steel, Fontana

9780738546506

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

In the first half of the 20th century, Fontana Farms Company operated a hog ranch on the site where Kaiser Company Incorporated later erected one of the nation's largest steel mills. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States was forced into an unprecedented escalation in the production of ships, planes, and armaments. Soon the sensational announcement came to San Bernardino County that Fontana, a railroad convergence located a safe distance from possible coastal bombardment, would become home to thousands of sweathogs in the war effort. A "gold rush" of sorts ensued, and all property south of Valencia Street to the railroad was sold in a week. This book pays tribute to the fact that, for two generations, Kaiser Steel Corporation at Fontana was among California's and the nation's industrial giants.

Bullock's Department Store

9781467132961

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

From the store's beginnings in March 1907 until its closing on June 25, 1983, Bullock's was Los Angeles's store of choice. Throughout its 76 years of operation, Bullock's flagship department store became an icon, a commercial beacon in the vast city. The name Bullock's has engendered many memories in many people. For those loyal patrons who grew up, lived in, or visited the City of Angels, Bullock's was--and still is--a part of their lives. Bullock's was a rite of passage. From baby clothing to back-to-school gear, prom dresses to bridal gowns, Bullock's offered quality merchandise and exemplary customer service. The store's professional sales staff solidified its place in retail history. The staff knew you by name, and Bullock's was more than just a shopping destination. It was part of the community; it was your family and was always there for you.

Wells Fargo

9780738531434

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Those striking images of stagecoaches traversing rugged mountain terrain are no mere marketing gimmick, but part and parcel of Wells Fargo's storied past. When Henry Wells and William Fargo founded the company in 1852, the gold rush had already brought thousands of people to California and uncovered the largest amount of wealth then known to the world. Wells Fargo served a unique role as a banking, express or transporting, and mail-delivery agency. In 1857, the company helped establish the Overland Mail Company; in 1861, it operated the Pony Express; and in 1866, it put together a 3,000-mile network of stagecoaches running between California and Nebraska. Three decades later, Wells Fargo covered the nation over a web of iron rails. Miners and merchants, ranchers and farmers alike depended on Wells Fargo. The company always used the fastest means possible for its deliveries and fund transfers, whether by riverboat, ocean steamer, pony express, stagecoach, railroad, or the fastest method of all, the telegraph.

The Palace Hotel

9780738559698

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

When it opened in 1875, the Palace Hotel was the largest and most luxurious hotel in the world, a perfect symbol of one of the most remarkable eras in San Francisco history. Built at a time when Nevada's fabulously rich silver mines were pouring millions of dollars each month into San Francisco, it typified the color and grandiose extravagances of the whole bonanza period. After the original hotel was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire, a successor Palace Hotel took its place and remains one of the most prestigious hotels in San Francisco today.

Falk

9781467129756

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Between the years 1884 and 1937, the company mill and lumber town of Falk thrived in what is now the Headwaters Forest Reserve. In the late 1800s, Noah Falk and two other stakeholders became partners in the Elk River Mill and Lumber Company. During this transitional time in logging history, Falk was able to capitalize on the relatively inexpensive price of land, cheap labor, and inexpensive logging technologies, such as the band saw and the Dolbeer steam donkey. Isolated from Eureka and within the backdrop of the industrial revolution, many changes and spikes in local and immigrant populations created an intricate company town of 400 people. Between the 1940s and 1970s, Falk became a ghost town until the vacant buildings eventually became part of the soil that now supports the Headwaters Forest Reserve, managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Levi Strauss & Co.

9780738555539

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

When Bavarian immigrant Levi Strauss opened his wholesale dry goods warehouse on the San Francisco waterfront in 1853, he likely had no inkling that his business would become one of the world's largest clothing companies. Levi Strauss & Co. started with imported clothing, bedding, and notions to supply the many small stores serving the Gold Rush and the expanding American West. By 1873, he and partner Jacob Davis invented the very first blue jeans, which were soon worn by working men from Los Angeles to Laramie. Strauss parlayed his business acumen into social progress by giving back to his community and embedding a company culture committed to positively impacting society. In this spirit, the Levi Strauss Foundation was created after World War II, formalizing the philanthropic work started by Strauss himself a century earlier. All the while, the company has evolved with successive generations of family owners, expanding product lines to meet the ever-changing needs of consumers around the world.

South Pasadena's Raymond Hotel

9780738559193

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Built in lavish Victorian style in 1886 atop Bacon Hill, the Raymond Hotel was the most regal feature on the skyline in the San Gabriel River Valley--a sundown silhouette of the wealth and prominence that had coalesced in the Pasadena area. It became the base of activities for Eastern tycoons' families enjoying the balmy Southern California climate, even fostering the development of the winter mansions on Orange Grove Avenue. After the original 200-room hotel with 80 chimneys burned down on Easter Sunday in 1895, the second 300-room Raymond Hotel opened in 1901. The pioneering orange groves on the sprawling grounds gave way to a golf course. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt and Charles Chaplin are just two examples of the early-20th-century celebrities who stayed there. This visually stunning collection of images is a mere sample of the vintage professional photography that exists of South Pasadena's iconic landmark.

The Harris Company

9780738559018

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

For almost 100 years, the slogan "Harris" Has It" set a standard for quality merchandise, selection, and personal service. Starting in 1905 with only 25 feet of frontage at its original San Bernardino store, this partnership of three immigrant brothers grew into a corporation of nine stores, with the flagship store alone worth over $1 million. The Harris Company was the first in the region to enhance the shopping experience with the introduction of elevators, electric signs, and escalators. Although the store closed in 1999, the Harris Company is remembered throughout the Inland Empire as a shopping experience that was more than just business, it was "looking after people."

Max Factor and Hollywood

9781467136105

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

When Polish wigmaker and cosmetician Max Factor arrived in Los Angeles at the dawn of the motion picture industry, "make-up" had been associated only with stage performers and ladies of the oldest profession. Appalled by the garish paints worn by actors, Factor introduced the first "flexible" greasepaint for film in 1914. With a few careful brush strokes, a lot of innovation and the kind of luck that can happen only in Hollywood, Max Factor changed the meaning of glamour. His innovations can be experienced in every tube of lipstick, palette of eye shadow and bottle of nail lacquer used today. Join author Erika Thomas as she reveals the makeup guru's expert beauty tips and the story of how he created the most iconic golden-era looks that are as relevant today as they were nearly a century ago.

Occidental

9781467104630

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Occidental is a picturesque village in West Sonoma County nestled between the Salmon Creek and Dutch Bill Creek watersheds. William "Dutch Bill" Howard is considered the first permanent European settler in 1849, but he was not Dutch, and his name was not Bill--he was actually Danish and had assumed a new identity after deserting a ship to look for gold. Howard and another early settler, logging baron "Boss" Meeker, were instrumental in shaping early Occidental. The North Pacific Coast Railroad arrived in 1876, requiring construction of the country's tallest timber bridge. The railroad allowed much faster communication and transportation of people and goods, including redwood, charcoal, tanbark, and produce. Italians also started arriving in the 1870s, opening authentic Italian restaurants that have now served generations of families. In the 1970s, a culture clash occurred between ranchers and farmers with hippies and artists, but together they fought to maintain the beauty and character of Occidental.

Nevada County Wine

9781467139540

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Nevada County's tumultuous wine history includes several booms and busts, starting in the 1850s when gold prospectors brought the first grapevines in their saddlebags. Economic downturns, prohibition and war all tried to kill the fledgling wine industry, but it hung on thanks to gentleman farmers and members of the mining industry who supplied a thirsty clientele. Today, although the mines have gone quiet, wineries are thriving in the hills of the Gold Country, and the pioneering spirit lives on in their distinctive vintages and growing techniques. Join author Mary Anne Davis as she explores the family vineyards of the California foothills.

Monterey's Hotel del Monte

9780738530321

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

California's "Big Four" railroad tycoons built the Hotel del Monte to be the most elegant seaside resort in the world. Although it boasted 126 landscaped acres when it was constructed in 1880, pampered guests, including presidents and kings, stars and magnates, needed a larger playground. Owners added the 7,000-acre Del Monte Forest and 17-Mile Drive, planned to optimize picturesque spots along the Monterey coast, like Cypress Point and Pebble Beach. Burned to the ground in 1887 and 1924, the Del Monte became more luxurious with each incarnation, at one time incorporating a glass-roofed swimming pavilion, racetrack, lake, tennis courts, and Del Monte Golf Course, now the oldest continuously operating golf course in the West. The third hotel became the Naval Postgraduate School in 1952.