California

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]
7 products
Riverboats of Northern California
Riverboats of Northern California
$24.99
Cover image for The California Delta, isbn: 9780738547879
The California Delta
$24.99
Cover image for Historic Shipwrecks of Coastside California, isbn: 9781467155557
Historic Shipwrecks of Coastside California
$24.99
Ferries of San Francisco Bay
Ferries of San Francisco Bay
$24.99
Cover image for San Francisco's Aquatic Park, isbn: 9780738530840
San Francisco's Aquatic Park
$24.99
Shipwrecks of the California Coast
Shipwrecks of the California Coast
$21.99
Houseboats of Sausalito
Houseboats of Sausalito
$24.99

Riverboats of Northern California

9780738574967

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
California's mighty rivers served as the state's early superhighways. Riverboats transported countless tons of supplies, workers, and settlers from the coast to inland gold rush colonies and everywhere in between. Majestic sidewheelers and sternwheelers burning coal, wood, and oil plied the waterways of the delta, as well as the Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Napa Rivers, and the lesser-known routes of the Sonoma and Petaluma. Starting with the Sitka in 1847, boats such as the Captain Weber, Jacinto, Fort Sutter, T.C. Walker, and J.R. McDonald ruled the rivers, visiting such ports as Courtland, Stockton, Sacramento, San Francisco, Marysville, Firebaugh, Yuba City, and Rio Vista.
Riverboats of Northern California

The California Delta

9780738547879

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Welcome to the delta--California style! Over 1,000 miles of waterways lure sportsmen, boaters, and outdoor enthusiasts to the largest estuary in the western United States, surpassed nationally only by the Mississippi River Delta. For generations, the promise of lazy summer days has beckoned travelers to cruise the mighty Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. Along with vacationers, however, agricultural users and commercial vessels from around the globe share in the California Delta's bounty. Over 23 million Californians rely on the delta watershed for drinking water, and diversions sustain the largest agricultural industry in the nation. The small towns dotting the sloughs from Collinsville to Stockton to Walnut Grove tell of a simpler time, while today's delta faces such challenges as wildlife-habitat restoration, water rights, housing development, and politics. Complicating these issues, aging levees throughout the low-lying region threaten a disaster of national proportions--and with that prospect, the very future of the California Delta.
Cover image for The California Delta, isbn: 9780738547879

Historic Shipwrecks of Coastside California

9781467155557

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%

The stretch of California coast from San Francisco to Monterey has seen its share of disastrous shipwrecks with devastating losses, but there are also stories of courage, innovative rescues and unique salvage operations. Uncover the tale of the adventurous, ill-fated Sir John Franklin, now marked only by a nearly forgotten cemetery, and relive the wreck of the New York, one of the most notorious ships to ever sail. Learn about the Coastside's worst maritime tragedy, when the passenger steamship San Juan was struck by the oil tanker twice her size and sank in minutes, plunging seventy-five men, women and children into the sea.

Join author JoAnn Semones as she shares the stories of doomed ships that found their end along Coastside California.

Cover image for Historic Shipwrecks of Coastside California, isbn: 9781467155557

Ferries of San Francisco Bay

9780738547312

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Decades before San Francisco Bay was crisscrossed by bridges, an extensive network of ferries plied these green waters, moving passengers, vehicles, and freight between San Francisco, Alameda, Marin, Solano, Sonoma, and Contra Costa Counties. Very few of the ferries survive today, but at one time, elegant and sturdy vessels like the Santa Clara, Sacramento, Encinal, Eureka, Oakland, and Tamalpais ruled the waves and supported the critical commerce of this region. From the early days of single-enders, double-enders, stern-wheelers, and side-wheelers burning coal and crude oil, to more modern designs of diesel-powered craft, these vessels have long been an important link in Bay Area transport, along with their railway connections. Equipped with up to four decks, the ferries' cargoes included commuters, livestock, automobiles, mail, convicts, express packages, and even entire railroad trains.
Ferries of San Francisco Bay

San Francisco's Aquatic Park

9780738530840

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Aquatic Park has long been the place where San Franciscans and tourists alike go to enjoy an authentic maritime experience. Along Hyde Street Pier and the sandy strip of beach near the Maritime Museum, this area was once called Black Point Cove. It now hosts a dramatic array of historic ships such as the Balclutha (formerly Star of Alaska) and a graceful curvilinear pier with a sweeping vista of the Golden Gate. For most of its history, this park has seen recreational use of every stripe. Members of the delightful Dolphin Club have braved the chilly bay waters ever since the club was founded in 1877. Then there is the South End Rowing Club, which for many decades has carried on its graceful traditions in the protected lagoon.
Cover image for San Francisco's Aquatic Park, isbn: 9780738530840

Shipwrecks of the California Coast

9781609499242

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
More than two thousand ships have been lost along California's 840 miles of coastline--Spanish galleons, passenger liners, freighters, schooners. Some tragedies are marking points in U.S. maritime history. The City of Rio de Janeiro, bound from Hong Kong to San Francisco in 1901, sliced the fog only to strike a rock and sink in twenty minutes, sending 128 passengers to watery graves. Seven U.S. Navy destroyers, bound on a fateful 1923 night from San Francisco to San Diego, crashed into the rocks at Honda Point on the treacherous Santa Barbara County coast, killing 23 sailors in one of the military's worst peacetime losses. Join author Michael D. White as he navigates the shoals of shipping mishaps with both salvage stories and elegies to the departed.
Shipwrecks of the California Coast

Houseboats of Sausalito

9780738555522

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The unique and colorful houseboat community has long been the centerpiece of life in Sausalito, and while these floating homes are well known, relatively few people know just how far back their history goes. Not a recent phenomenon, as so many assume, the houseboat community has a history stretching back to the 1880s and earlier. While houseboats once existed in nearly a dozen ports in and around San Francisco Bay--and indeed throughout the West Coast--the focus of this buoyant lifestyle is now the waters of Marin County, along the shoreline of Richardson's Bay. Over the years, a variety of forces--including the 1906 earthquake and fire, the building of bridges and the resulting decline of the ferryboat fleet, World War II, and legal pressures on waterfront property owners--helped to shape life on the water, Sausalito's houseboat community, and this fascinating tale.
Houseboats of Sausalito