Name: Southern Pacific's Slim Princess
Brand: Andrew J. Grove
SKU: 9781467108782
Price: 23.99 USD
Availability: InStock

Andrew J. Grove

Southern Pacific's Slim Princess

9781467108782

$23.99

For 60 years, the Southern Pacific’s Slim Princess served as the lifeline to remote areas of western Nevada and eastern California.

In 1880, the financiers of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad organized the Carson & Colorado Railroad to build a narrow-gauge line from the Carson River to the Colorado River, but that dream was never fully realized. In 1900, the Southern Pacific Railroad purchased the 300-mile line, envisioning it as a shortcut from Nevada to Southern California. The northern half of the line was converted to standard gauge in 1905. The section from Mina, Nevada, to Keeler, California, remained an isolated and celebrated part of the Southern Pacific until it succumbed to the scrapper’s torch in 1960.

Author Andrew Brandon has over 30 years of extensive study in railroad history and involvement with noteworthy projects in the railroad preservation community. Since 2001, he has been involved with the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum in Nevada City, where he currently serves as the curator. Brandon also serves on board of directors for the Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge Historical Society and the Nevada–California–Oregon Railway. In 2009, he helped establish PacificNG.org—a website dedicated to researching narrow-gauge railroads around the Pacific Rim.

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Mark S. Bassett

Nevada Northern Railway

9780738574752

$24.99

The Nevada Northern Railway is the sole survivor from a grand era when railroads served mines throughout the state. Built in 1905-1906 to develop the incredible copper deposits of the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company in White Pine County, it was--and still is--a workaday railroad. Although its primary purpose was to haul ore, it eventually served the community with a daily passenger train between East Ely and Cobre until 1941. Over 4.5 million people rode the trains, and a mountain of copper ore was moved. In 1983, the Nevada Northern Railway ceased operating, and two years later the entire ore line, including the railroad's yard and shop facilities in East Ely, was donated to the White Pine Historical Railroad Foundation that now operates the railway as a museum. Instead of relics in glass cases or repainted old equipment on static display, the museum preserves a working steam railroad, delighting train enthusiasts year-round with passenger service and special seasonal excursions.

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Kerry Sullivan

Southern Pacific in California

9780738582078

$24.99

The Southern Pacific Railroad is California's railroad. As the Central Pacific, it bored and blasted its way east from Sacramento, across the towering High Sierra, meeting with the Union Pacific at Promontory, Utah, completing the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, and profoundly changing the growing United States. By the early 20th century, the Southern Pacific was a rail colossus, stretching from San Francisco Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. Yet the Southern Pacific remained essentially Californian. Its rail lines gave muscle to the lovely California coast, the fertile San Joaquin and Imperial Valleys, and the timber industry of the north coast. Yet for all its might and majesty, for many Californians the Southern Pacific was a smaller, more intimate part of the fabric of their daily lives.

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Ph.D. Deutsch Reena

San Diego and Arizona Railway

9780738581484

$24.99

Surveyors called the San Diego and Arizona Railway (SD&A) "The Impossible Railroad" because of its jagged, mountainous, and brutal desert route. The financier and driving force behind building this binational 148-mile rail connection to the east from San Diego, California, was businessman John D. Spreckels. Because of his perseverance, the jinxed 1907-1919 construction overcame a series of disasters, including the Mexican Revolution, a prolonged lawsuit, floods, World War I, labor shortages, a tunnel cave-in, and a lethal pandemic. Once up and running, the line was intermittently in and out of service and later sold and renamed the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway. While "The Impossible Railroad" still faces constant challenges and partial closures, freight and trolley service currently operate on its right-of-way, and tourist excursions are offered at its Campo, California, depot.

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Stephen D. Mikesell

Sierra Railway

9781467115308

$24.99

The Sierra Railway is one of the most intact steam railroads in the United States. It is operated today by California State Parks to interpret and celebrate the importance of steam railroading in California history. Located in the Gold Rush town of Jamestown, in Tuolumne County, the railway began operations in 1897 and played an important role in developing the economy of Tuolumne and adjoining Calaveras County. While nearly all other steam short-line railroads in the United States were dismantled in the 1950s, the Sierra line has survived in a remarkably complete condition. The railway was a big hit among railfans, who flocked to it as early as the 1930s and in increasing numbers in the 1950s. Now operated as Railtown 1897 State Historic Park, the steam operation of the railroad is very much alive.

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Allan C. Lewis

Colorado and Southern Railway

9780738529295

$24.99

In 1860, thousands journeyed to the Colorado Territory, beckoned by reports of gold discoveries in the mountains west of Denver. In the early 1870s, W.A.H. Loveland built a railroad connecting Denver to the Clear Creek Mining District-the Colorado Central Railroad. Over the next 28 years, other lines were established, bought, sold, extended, and merged to service the mining towns of Black Hawk, Central City, Idaho Springs, and Silver Plume. In 1898, the Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf, and the Denver Leadville & Gunnison were combined to form the Colorado & Southern Railway. After more than 40 years of dedication to the Clear Creek District, the railroad was scrapped in 1941. However, tourism would revitalize the area, and in the years to come a group of enthusiasts began to rebuild a portion of the old right of way. Toady, the spirit of the C&S is alive again, and rail fans can make the same journey over The Loop that thrilled tourists a century ago.

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Robert P. Palazzo

Railroads of Death Valley

9780738574790

$21.99

Railroads have played an important part in the history of Death Valley. The Pacific Coast Borax Company first used the Death Valley Railroad to transport its ore to market and then to transport Death Valley tourists to its Furnace Creek Resort. "Death Valley Scotty's" leap to national fame came as a direct result of his chartering a private train to break the Los Angeles to Chicago speed record. The Carson & Colorado Railroad on the west and the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad on the east provided support to Death Valley's mining activity, its associated boomtowns, and early tourism.

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Katy Tahja

Logging Railroads of Humboldt and Mendocino Counties

9780738596211

$24.99

Locomotive steam whistles echo no more in the forests of the north California coast. A century ago, Humboldt and Mendocino Counties had more than 40 railroads bringing logs out of the forest to mills at the water's edge. Only one single railroad ever connected to the outside world, and it too is gone. One railroad survives as the Skunk Train in Mendocino County, and it carries tourists today instead of lumber. Redwood and tan oak bark were the two products moved by rail, and very little else was hauled other than lumberjacks and an occasional picnic excursion for loggers' families. Economic depressions and the advent of trucking saw railroads vanish like a puff of steam from the landscape.

Cover image for Logging Railroads of Humboldt and Mendocino Counties, isbn: 9780738596211

Dale W. Jones

The Great Northern Railway in Marias Pass

9781467125192

$29.99

Montana's Marias Pass is the lowest rail crossing through the Rocky Mountains. The tracks snake through narrow canyons, traverse the swift Middle Fork of the Flathead River, and twist through numerous snowsheds and tunnels to crest the 5,213-foot Continental Divide. James Jerome Hill was the driving force behind Great Northern Railway's mission to find the most economical route to the Pacific coast, with surveyor John F. Stevens taking a major role in locating the pass. Browning is the eastern gateway into Marias Pass as the railroad approaches the Rocky Mountain Front; continuing west from Summit, the tracks parallel Bear Creek and the Middle Fork of the Flathead River downgrade through Essex to Glacier National Park and into the Flathead Valley.

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Ben Kifle

Roaring Camp Railroads

9781467129961

$24.99

In 1963, Norman Clark officially opened Roaring Camp to the public. Since then, it has become a popular and well-known destination for tourists and rail buffs from around the world who wish to visit and ride on its 100-year-old steam trains. Isaac Graham, who constructed the first powered sawmill and the first whiskey distillery in the American West, settled the area in the 1840s. Graham was notorious for his boisterous antics, and his settlement became known as a wild and roaring camp. Clark arrived in the area in the mid-1950s with $25 in his pocket and the dream of preserving a piece of early California. Clark's dream included a plan to construct an 1880s railroad town, complete with an authentic narrow-gauge logging railway. Over the last 50 years, Clark's dream has been continued and expanded, now incorporating two railroads, one of which dates to 1875.

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Paul C. Trimble

Sacramento Northern Railway

9780738530529

$24.99

The Sacramento Northern Railway was once a critical interurban link between California's northern Central Valley communities, the state capital, and the Bay Area. Running through orchards, farmland, swamps, and cities, this electric railway began its life in 1905. Service eventually ran from Chico to Oakland, but after the Bay Bridge opened in 1939, the 186-mile route started in San Francisco's Financial District, crossed the bridge on the lower deck, ran through Contra Costa County towns like Moraga, Lafayette, and Pittsburg, across the Suisun straits on the massive rail ferry Ramon (which could hold an entire train), and into Sacramento, the halfway point. From there, the train continued through rolling hills and farms on to Marysville, and finally to Chico before making its return journey. The Sacramento Northern soldiered on until World War II, but eventually the growing car culture, along with competing diesel railroads, undid this splendid line. Interurban passenger service ended in 1941, and the various lines were gradually abandoned or dieselized. Today a 22-mile segment of the route remains in operation at the Bay Area Electric Railway Museum in Solano County.

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Stephen E. Drew

Virginia & Truckee Railroad

9781467107419

$23.99

The Virginia & Truckee (V&T) was once the richest and most famous short line railroad in America. Created in 1869 to provide transportation for the Comstock Lode, the V&T transported gold and silver ore to the quartz reduction mills. On the return trip, it brought back cordwood for fuel, timbers for mining, lumber for building communities, and all the goods needed by the area’s nearly 40,000 inhabitants. The V&T also supported passenger transportation between Virginia City, Gold Hill, Carson City, and Reno. At its peak, this “bonanza railroad” ran 50 trains per day and paid stockholders more than $130,000 in monthly dividends. Over the next 80 years, operations dwindled to a trickle, and the last train ran in May 1950. Today, the V&T is immortalized in motion pictures, its locomotives and cars are exhibited in museums, and 14 miles of the V&T have been returned to operation.

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Ashley Page

The Cheyenne Depot

9781467105316

$24.99

Twenty years after Cheyenne was founded by Union Pacific, the city had outgrown its three-room board-and-batten depot and began to lobby for a new, grander building that better represented the lustrous community.

Union Pacific agreed, and in 1886, construction began on the lavish three-story passenger depot and headquarters for the division.The Cheyenne Union Pacific Depot, designated a national historic landmark in 2006, endures proudly as a symbol of the Magic City and the lasting partnership between the city and the railroad that build it.It continues to serve as Cheyenne’s gathering place, a center of activism, and an enduring symbol of the city itself.While the state capitol just down the street stands as a symbol for the state of Wyoming, the Union Pacific Depot belongs to Cheyenne alone.

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Rhea-Frances Tetley

Lake Arrowhead

9780738529189

$24.99

Legend has it that the remarkable scar on the southern face of the mountain was formed when the Great Spirit fired an arrow at healing hot springs along the baseline, to mark the spot for the Pauite and Serrano Indians. From the floor of the San Bernardino Valley, the arrowhead can be seen from up to 50 miles away. The once-named Little Bear Valley was populated mostly by loggers for a time, but in the 1920s, the area was reimagined as a getaway spot. Tourists and Hollywood stars flocked to the lakefront hotels and homes, and the lake became a year-round destination for skiing, hiking, shopping, and dining.

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D. C. Jesse Burkhardt

Railroads of the Columbia River Gorge

9780738529165

$24.99

Before the rails were up and running along the stunning Columbia River landscape of Oregon and Washington, 19th-century westward travelers faced treacherous conditions. Many emigrants perished before reaching Oregon Territory. Only recently have railways bridged the wide gap formed millions of years ago. Today the gorge remains the major commercial route through the Cascades, and the tracks are a shining example of human engineering and a mecca for rail enthusiasts. Mount Hood, Union Pacific, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains seem to connect in a magical way with the land, blasting out of raw, rock-faced tunnels, gliding under bridges, snaking along the edges of towns and along the big river, always rolling somewhere distant, symbolic of our national connectedness—and our restlessness.

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Tim Stricker

Yreka Western Railroad

9780738574301

$24.99

The city of Yreka was determined to have a railroad. When the Southern Pacific Railroad decided in 1883 to bypass Yreka, the citizens constructed their own railroad known as the Yreka Railroad Company. This railroad managed to eke out a living over the next few decades. In the 1930s, the railroad was reincorporated as the Yreka Western Railroad. By the mid-1930s, the railroad went bankrupt and was forced into receivership, and a new manager was put in charge. Through perseverance of the new manager, the railroad began to grow and prosper. By the late 1970s, the railroad once again started to decline, but as in the past, it managed to hold on. In 1986, the railroad started an excursion train known as the Blue Goose, and steam locomotive No. 19 was added in 1989. Throughout all the hardships, the railroad still continues today and has been given the nickname the Little Railroad that Refuses to Die.

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Dr. Sandra F. Mather

Summit County's Narrow-Gauge Railroads

9781467116855

$24.99

Summit County's Narrow-Gauge Railroads tells the story of the two railroads that fought for dominance in Summit County, Colorado, during the late 1800s and early 1900s: the Denver, South Park & Pacific and the Denver & Rio Grande. The two railroads developed an intense rivalry as they sought to monopolize the county's economic potential. Altitude, heavy winter snow, and rugged mountainous terrain combined to provide a unique set of challenges to company management as well as to the crews as they battled to lay the tracks and provide much-needed rail service to the residents and businesses of the county. Intimately tied to the mining economy, the fortunes of the railroads plummeted when the mining economy collapsed. Although poorly financed and poorly built, the railroads changed the living conditions for county residents. Without the railroads bringing the necessary equipment and lumber, nine huge gold-dredging boats would not have scoured the county's major waterways between 1898 and 1942.

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Allan C. Lewis

Rails around Durango

9780738548593

$24.99

In the 1880s, the Denver & Rio Grande began building its three-foot railroad toward the San Juan Mountains alongside the Animas River and the budding community of Durango. The D&RG quickly established itself in Durango, constructing a depot as well as a 45-mile connection to the regional mining hub of Silverton. Over 60 years, the towns, the railroad, and the mines it served would weather plummeting silver values and a turbulent economy. By the end of World War II, declining freight volumes left the future of the railroad in doubt, but by the late 1940s, a growing number of train enthusiasts were journeying to Durango for one last ride. The new popularity of the Silverton Branch brought rail fans to the area in increasing numbers through the 1950s. Today the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad continues to preserve the region's railroading past and has become a unique aspect of the history of Southwestern Colorado.

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Monica Hudson

Carmel-by-the-Sea

9780738531229

$24.99

A local poet once described Carmel-by-the-Sea, with its haunting pines, fog, and white sand, as our inevitable place. The area had been inhabited for more than 3,000 years when Fr. Junipero Serra chose the site for his mission
headquarters in 1771. The romantic name, Carmel-by-the-Sea, was the gift of a group of women real estate developers, later used in advertising lots for brain workers at in-door employment. Many Stanford and UC Berkeley professors, artists, writers, and musicians left a lasting legacy here in their art and in their rejection of largescale commercial development. Although impoverished artists may no longer afford to live here, many residents and millions of sojourners still consider the lovely village packed with galleries and eateries their inevitable place.

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Emiliano Echeverria

The Key System

9780738547220

$24.99

It is difficult now to imagine San Francisco Bay without bridges, but not too long ago, a complex system of ferries and trains helped span the waters in an elegant way. The Key System was a huge portion of this network; it was part of businessman Borax Smith's method to attract San Francisco workers to live in the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, and Piedmont, where he dealt in real estate. The Southern Pacific Railroad was the Key System's fierce competitor, then later an ally, before it was vanquished. Thousands of commuters rode the system for years, until a ridership decline eventually doomed the Key when bridges finally crisscrossed the bay.

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Thomas Q. O'Hara

Camp Pendleton

9780738529820

$24.99

Camp Pendleton was established in 1942 by the Navy Department as the West Coast training facility for the United States Marine Corps. Located in rugged northwest San Diego County, Camp Pendleton quickly became one of the largest training centers for infantry, aviation, and amphibious units and has long been the threshold for Marines embarking to participate in armed conflicts in the Far East and around the globe. From World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom, Camp Pendleton has served as the backdrop and staging ground for troops, artillery, tanks, and infantry. Named for Maj. Gen. Joseph H. Pendleton, who pioneered Marine activity in San Diego, Camp Pendleton is situated on approximately 250,000 acres on the California coast and its access to land, sea, and air has been instrumental in cross-training Marines. Thousands of Marines have called CamPen home since its inception, including the oldest and most decorated Marine unit, the 1st Marine Division.

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D. C. Jesse Burkhardt

Columbia River Gorge Railroads

9781467134828

$24.99

The Columbia River Gorge is a land of scenic wonder, revered by tourists for its beauty and by recreationalists for its fishing, windsurfing, hiking, and rafting. The region is also a major transportation corridor, home to two vital east-west railroad routes: Burlington Northern Santa Fe on the Washington side of the Columbia River and Union Pacific on the Oregon side. Every day, dozens of freight trains—as well as Amtrak passenger trains—snake along on opposite banks of the wide river, and rail operations have become an integral part of the heartbeat of the gorge. The colorful images in this work celebrate the art and magic of the trains that move goods and passengers through this striking, rugged landscape.

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Janet McGovern

Caltrain and the Peninsula Commute Service

9780738576220

$24.99

The rail line now called Caltrain was started in the 1860s to create a faster alternative to stagecoaches and ships between the key cities of San Francisco and San Jose. Operated by Southern Pacific for many years, the Peninsula Commute Service is the oldest continuously operating passenger railroad in the West and boasts seven depots in the National Register of Historic Places. This indomitable iron horse has filled a vital transportation role, from evacuating San Franciscans during the 1906 earthquake to getting commuters to work. With the dawn of the 21st century, Caltrain reinvented itself yet again with its innovative Baby Bullet express trains.

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Erik Ostresh

Laramie Railroads

9781467130837

$24.99

On July 1, 1862, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act. This act created the Union Pacific Railroad and authorized government loans and land grants to aid in the construction of the nation's first transcontinental railroad, which would connect Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California. As the Union Pacific raced west across prairies, mountains, and basins in 1867 and 1868, the Territory of Wyoming and many of its southern towns and cities were founded, including Laramie. In 1869, the Union Pacific met the Central Pacific at Promontory Summit, Utah, and the transcontinental railroad was complete. This is the story of the railroads of Laramie, a fabled place along the Union Pacific's Overland Route.

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John Schmale

Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railway

9780738559599

$24.99

With a schedule regulated by the tides and the needs of chickens, the Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railway operated for 81 years as a delightfully quirky egg-hauling enterprise. Modern electric railroad technology paired with ancient low-tech steamboats made possible the overnight shipping of fresh produce to a voracious San Francisco market. The railroad helped Petaluma earn the moniker "the egg basket of the world." Incorporated in 1903, the railroad provided efficient train service to this fertile farm region. The famous botanist Luther Burbank located his experimental farm near Sebastopol and proclaimed it is nature's "chosen spot of all the earth." The railroad survived the devastating 1906 earthquake, opposition from three larger railroads, the Great Depression, and fierce auto-truck competition. The corporation was, mercifully, abandoned in 1984, and most of the rails were removed by 1988. Happily, recent plans call for a tourist trolley to operate over a portion of surviving Petaluma tracks.

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Kevin Hecteman

Sacramento's Southern Pacific Shops

9780738580524

$24.99

In 1862, the Central Pacific Railroad was founded and began building eastward from Sacramento as part of the transcontinental railroad. This required a shop capable of keeping the railroad's equipment in running order. So in 1867, in the swamps just north of town, the Sacramento shops were born. For well more than a century, this massive complex kept the Central Pacific and its corporate successor, the Southern Pacific, operating smoothly. For many decades, the shops were the largest employer in the Sacramento area, employing carpenters, painters, draftsmen, boilermakers, electricians, clerks, upholsterers, and others. The shops' forces designed, built, and maintained locomotives, freight and passenger cars, and other railroading equipment. The complex closed in 1999. Most of the area, popularly known as the Railyards, is set for redevelopment. The California State Railroad Museum handles maintenance and restoration of its collection in two of the shops buildings and plans to develop a Railroad Technology Museum on the site.

Cover image for Sacramento's Southern Pacific Shops, isbn: 9780738580524

Dale W. Jones

Montana Rails

9781467105163

$24.99

For nearly 150 years, railroads have been transforming the Montana landscape, from Continental Divide peaks to windswept prairies. Steel rails arrived on May 9, 1880, when the narrow-gauge Utah & Northern reached Monida Pass south of Butte. At the zenith of rail line construction during the 1890s and early 20th century, all major transcontinental railroads crisscrossed Montana: the Union Pacific; Northern Pacific; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q); Great Northern; Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul (Milwaukee Road); and Soo Line. Through the years, many original railroads evolved into the Burlington Northern Railroad, Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), and Montana Rail Link with unique short lines along the way. Though routes and operations have changed, the scenery of Big Sky Country remains the same. Take a journey across Montana rails, from the mountains to the prairies.

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Allan C. Lewis

Railroads of the Pike's Peak Region

9780738528823

$24.99

During the gilded age of rail travel in the late 1800s, Colorado Springs became one of the primary portals of westward expansion and a hub for both passenger and freight traffic. Over thousands of miles of tracks traveled merchants, industrialists, tourists, and fortune seekers, all bent on enjoying what Colorado had to offer either on a temporary or permanent basis. Much of the history of the Pike's Peak Region was predicated on the railroads, and the growth that the area enjoyed was dependent on the new residents and the trains that brought them.

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Stephen E. Drew

Nevada's Virginia & Truckee Railroad

9781467131056

$24.99

The Virginia & Truckee is the most famous short line railroad in American history. Brainchild of William Sharon and the Bank of California, the V&T hauled the silver and gold ore, the cordwood, and the mining timbers that made the 1870s Big Bonanza a reality. From the state capital at Carson City, V&T rails stretched 66 miles to Virginia City, Reno, and Minden, Nevada. Serving the transportation needs of the Comstock's nearly 40,000 inhabitants, the V&T remained in operation until 1950. The enormously successful railroad paid its early owners handsome dividends. The V&T's ornate locomotives and cars have starred in hundreds of Hollywood productions and are now preserved in US museums. Since 1976, fourteen miles of the railroad have been restored to operation. The Virginia & Truckee has become an enduring legend.

Cover image for Nevada's Virginia & Truckee Railroad, isbn: 9781467131056

Daniel L. Osborne

Alaska's Tanana Valley Railroads

9780738596679

$24.99

In a region desperate for transportation to rich, gold-bearing creeks, the narrow-gauge Tanana Mines Railroad was built over permafrost, bogs, and hills to carry miners and supplies in 1905. Reorganized as the Tanana Valley Railroad, this little line promised the survival of both gold mining and Fairbanks until Fairbanks's economic base broadened. The railroad, built with Klondike Gold Rush earnings, prospered for only a few years and was acquired by the Alaska Railroad. The narrow-gauge survived 25 years, serving as the terminus for the Alaska Railroad and ensuring the development of Interior Alaska.

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Karen Jernigan

King City

9781467108041

$23.99

The town of King City came into existence in 1886, when the railroad arrived north of San Lorenzo Creek in the Salinas Valley of Central California. Named after Charles H. King, owner of this portion of the San Lorenzo Land Grant, King City has grown into a hub for the magnificent agricultural fields that surround it and support its economy. US Highway 101 and the Salinas River are unique features of the town, and Mesa Del Rey Airport was instrumental in the training of pilots during World War II. Author John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden is set near King City.

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Kevin Hecteman

Sacramento Southern Railroad

9780738569864

$24.99

The Sacramento Southern Railroad was born into a famous railroad family and a busy railroad town in July 1903. The mighty Southern Pacific, which controlled the new line from the outset, built south from Sacramento along the eastern bank of the Sacramento River into the delta's rich farmland area. At its zenith, the line was about 31 miles long, serving the communities of Freeport, Hood, Locke, Walnut Grove, and Isleton. Trains on what became known as the Walnut Grove Branch hauled pears, sugar beets, asparagus and other products from the agricultural region's packing sheds and canneries. Competition from trucking and damage from flooding took a severe toll on the railroad, and the Southern Pacific largely abandoned it by 1978, but a portion lives on as a labor of love.

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Jim Walker

Pacific Electric Red Cars

9780738546889

$24.99

Of the rail lines created at the turn of the 20th century, in order to build interurban links through Southern California communities around metropolitan Los Angeles, the Pacific Electric grew to be the most prominent of all. The Pacific Electric Railway is synonymous with Henry Edwards Huntington, the capitalist with many decades of railroad experience, who formed the P. E. and expanded it as principal owner for nearly its first decade. Huntington sold his PE holdings to the giant Southern Pacific Railroad in 1910, and the following year the SP absorbed nearly every electric line in the fourcounty area around Los Angeles in the Great Merger into a new Pacific Electric. Founded in 1901 and terminated in 1965, Pacific Electric was known as the World's Great Interurban.

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Jeff Livingston

Oahu's Narrow-Gauge Navy Rail

9781467131971

$24.99

US Navy rail operations on Oahu began in 1908 with construction railroads used to help build the shipyard. Expansion of Pearl Harbor to include the submarine base and the naval magazine on Kuahua Island required a permanent railroad, which was begun in 1911. This construction provided industrial employment to hundreds of local men in the existing agricultural economy, and the influx of additional manpower from the mainland contributed to an increasingly skilled and diverse population. World War II brought about a dramatic increase in Navy railroad operations in support of the war effort. Success in the Pacific theater of operations depended on the Navy's railroads, equipment, and the Oahu Railway & Land Company (OR&L), which connected all the bases. The OR&L abandoned its main line in December 1947. By the mid-1950s, railroad operations at Pearl Harbor also ceased. Rail operations continued at and between Naval Magazine Lualualei and Ammunition Depot West Loch through the Korean Conflict and Vietnam era, ending in 1972.

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Janet Penn (Author)

San Luis Obispo

9780738529271

$24.99

San Luis Obispo was founded in 1772 as a mission in the foothills of the Santa Lucia Mountains on California's Central Coast. The city that grew from a rustic pueblo, with its scattering of adobe buildings, today has a wealth of architectural styles. From the simple barns of the outlying farm community, to the grand hotels and lively saloons kept busy by the Southern Pacific Railroad depot, and back full circle to the Mission Revival style edifices of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo's architecture has echoed its history. Motor travel brought the world's first motel to this half-way point on California's historic Highway 101, and the famously zany tourist attraction, the Madonna Inn.

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Alfred Mullett

Sumpter Valley Logging Railroads

9780738575421

$24.99

In 1889, David Eccles chartered the Oregon Lumber Company, an organization that produced many mills and railways and whose influence was felt from Salt Lake City to Northern California and Idaho. Through family connections, Eccles was also involved with many other logging enterprises, and he influenced the growth of the Inter-Mountain region as well as the Pacific Northwest. Sumpter Valley Logging Railroads is a pictorial history of the Oregon operations, focusing on the operations along the Sumpter Valley Railway. It explores the rails, mills, and people, as well as the logging practices of a bygone era.

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Thornton Waite

The Railroad at Pocatello

9780738576176

$24.99

Pocatello was founded as a station on the narrow-gauge Utah and Northern Railway in 1878, and it has been a railroad town ever since. Passenger and freight trains arrived and departed in all four directions of the compass, 24 hours a day. The Union Pacific also built extensive shops at Pocatello, where railroad equipment was serviced, maintained, and repaired. In addition, refrigerator cars were iced from a large icehouse, and railroad ties were treated with preservative at a tie plant. The advent of the automobile, improved roads, new technologies, and the introduction of the diesel-electric locomotives all combined to change the railroad industry, affecting Pocatello in many ways. Passenger trains were discontinued, the steam-locomotive-servicing facilities were closed, and shop buildings were torn down. However, the railroad in Pocatello remains a vital part of the local scene today, with freight trains continuing to run through the city day and night.

Cover image for The Railroad at Pocatello, isbn: 9780738576176

Don Strack

Bingham Canyon Railroads

9780738584898

$24.99

Railroads and mining in Bingham Canyon have gone hand in hand since the first railroad was constructed in the canyon in late 1873. Bingham Canyon in the early years was a gold and silver mining camp, and the railroads were small operations. Copper mining took hold in the late 1890s, and the mines, mining companies, and railroads that served them expanded rapidly. Bingham Canyon soon became the largest and richest mining district in the western United States and was the source for as much as a third of the copper mined in the nation. A variety of locomotives worked in the canyon, including a small number of Shay locomotives, several large articulated steam locomotives, and the nation's largest roster of electric locomotives. The last Bingham Canyon ore train ran in late 2001. While the railroad tracks have been removed, the mine itself is very much in full production and remains the source for 25 percent of the nation's copper production.

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Ms. Sarah Langsdon Singh

Ogden

9781467107662

$23.99

Since its founding in 1850, Ogden has been home to fur trappers, Mormon pioneers, immigrants, railroad workers, and businessmen. The joining of the rails in 1869 with the completion of the transcontinental railroad forever changed the city. Ogden became known as the Crossroads of the West, and the city continued to thrive with the influx of people and industry. Ogden was known for its surrounding natural beauty and the ability to effectively accomplish anything it undertook. Ogden became home to generations of families including Charles Maccarthy and his family. Maccarthy was a railroader, by trade and a photographer by hobby. He was hardly seen without his camera. During the early 20th century, he captured the lives of Ogdenites, which included family gatherings, parades, and special events, and even stopped people on the street and asked to take their photographs.

Cover image for Ogden, isbn: 9781467107662

Stephen E. Drew

Lake Tahoe's Railroads

9781467117371

$24.99

Lake Tahoe is the majestic mountain lake that spans the boundary line of California and Nevada. The lake's clarity and scenic beauty are legendary. In the 1870s, the Nevada Comstock Lode created an insatiable appetite for Lake Tahoe's virgin pine forests. The timbers would shore up underground mining and build communities approaching 40,000 inhabitants. Railroads on three shores delivered the logs lakeside, where they were towed by steam-powered tugs to sawmills, to lumber flumes, and again by rail to their final destinations. As the mines and giant lake pines subsided, railroads pushed farther north after 1898 into new timber stands in the Lake Tahoe and Truckee River basins. Other rail lines were sold, barged across the lake, and repurposed for the burgeoning new industry of tourism. For the next 40 years, railroads marketed Lake Tahoe as their unique scenic destination.

Cover image for Lake Tahoe's Railroads, isbn: 9781467117371

Cheri Ryan

Seattle-Everett Interurban Railway

9780738580197

$24.99

Operating for 29 years, the Seattle-Everett Interurban Trolley traveled over 29 miles of rail carrying passengers and freight to nearly 30 stops along its line. In the first decade of the 1900s, the Boston electrical engineering firm of Stone and Webster had designs of building an interurban electric railway system that would eventually connect Olympia, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia. To start the Seattle north link, they purchased the existing Seattle-Everett Interurban Railway Company from Fred E. Sander in 1908. On the early morning of April 30, 1910, the Seattle-Everett Interurban Trolley made its inaugural run, starting in Everett. On February 20, 1939, the trolley left Everett for its last run.

Cover image for Seattle-Everett Interurban Railway, isbn: 9780738580197

Jeff Moore

Oregon & Northwestern Railroad

9781467130479

$24.99

In 1922, the US Forest Service offered one of the largest timber sales in the agency's history, encompassing 890 million board feet of mostly Ponderosa pine timber in the mountains north of Burns, Oregon. Among other requirements, the sale terms required the successful bidder to build and operate 80 miles of common carrier railroad through some of the most remote and undeveloped country in the state. The Fred Herrick Lumber Company and its Malheur Railroad initially won the bidding, only to lose it when a crash in the lumber market forced the company into insolvency. The Edward Hines Lumber Company of Chicago picked up the pieces, and from 1929 until 1984, its subsidiary Oregon & Northwestern Railroad made a living hauling logs, lumber, and occasional livestock between Burns and Seneca, Oregon.

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Alfred Mullett

Sumpter Valley Railway

9780738571256

$24.99

In July 1890, David Eccles and Charles Nibley chartered the Sumpter Valley Railway and changed the social and physical landscape of Eastern Oregon forever. The Sumpter Valley Railway and its parent company, the Oregon Lumber Company, became an economic engine that shaped the lives of generations of Eastern Oregonians. The rails stretched from Baker to Prairie City, Sumpter to Susanville, and laced ribbons of steel through the Powder River Valley and Elkhorns. This photographic history is a view into the life and times of a varied, interesting, and living railroad that was instrumental in the shaping of Eastern Oregon.

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Grant Ute

Alameda by Rail

9780738547060

$24.99

Across the great bay from San Francisco, the city of Alameda evolved into an island hometown of fine Victorian and Craftsman architecture and a port containing a naval air station, shipbuilding center, and the winter home of the long-gone Alaska Packers fleet of tall ships. But Alameda also was a busy railroad town. In 1864, a passenger railroad with a ferry connection created a commute to San Francisco. In 1869, the city became the first Bay Area terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad. Alameda became an island because a railroad allowed construction crews to dig a tidal canal, separating it from Oakland in 1902. Later generations rode steam, then electric, trains to a grand ferry pier where ornate watercraft guided them the 20 minutes to San Francisco. An auto tube, and later the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, hastened the demise of ferry, then rail, operations before World War II.

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Allan C. Lewis

Rails around Denver

9780738548029

$24.99

At the height of America's post–Civil War expansion, Colorado Territory was a land of great hope and opportunity. Forged at the confluence of commerce and geography, Colorado became a state in 1876, and Denver, the Queen City of the Plains. To address the growing need for efficient transportation throughout the state, early railroads such as the Kansas Pacific and the Denver and Rio Grande were built in
the 1870s. Serving all of these routes was the Denver Union Depot with its commodious dual-gauged tracks. These steel roads would become the region's economic lifeblood, hauling freight and passengers to the booming mountain mining towns, returning with ores for processing, and serving as the direct link for passengers and freight between the Rocky Mountains and the industrialized East.

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Emiliano Echeverria

San Francisco's Powell Street Cable Cars

9780738530475

$24.99

San Francisco's cable cars are an internationally recognized symbol of the city, but they also have a long and fractious history. There are actually three cable lines in operation today: the California Street line and the two Powell Street lines— the Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde. The Powell Street lines have been the subject of much controversy through the years, due to a complex lineage of private and public ownership. Cable cars on Powell Street began in 1888, operating under the Ferries and Cliff House Railway Company and utilizing the same basic design pioneered by Andrew Hallidie in 1873. Among the story's twists and turns are the line's actual routes following the 1906 earthquake, which caused heavy damage and forced major repairs. Post-quake, United Railroads was able to replace many of the cable car lines with streetcars, including a part of the Powell Street system. San Francisco at one time had eight separate cable car operators. Gradually most were replaced by streetcars, buses, and trolley buses, given the complexities and expense of cable systems. The Powell lines were taken over by the city in 1944, but the mayor tried to abandon them in 1947. The public disapproved of this move, and since then the Powell Street line has only grown in stature and its importance to San Francisco.

Cover image for San Francisco's Powell Street Cable Cars, isbn: 9780738530475

Jeff Moore

Rails Around McCloud

9780738555645

$24.99

California's northeastern corner is dominated by the 14,162-foot-tall presence of Mount Shasta. On the southeastern flank of the great mountain lies the picturesque town of McCloud. The McCloud River Railroad established its operational headquarters in the town in 1897. The next seven decades saw the railroad and the affiliated McCloud River Lumber Company carve hundreds of miles of railroad into the pine forests and lava beds east of McCloud, eventually reaching as far as Lookout to the east and the Burney Basin to the south. The McCloud River Railroad eked out a living hauling lumber, diatomaceous earth, and occasional tourists until 1992, when the new McCloud Railway Company purchased the property. In 1996, the new owners launched the Shasta Sunset Dinner Train to supplement the declining freight business. Economic conditions forced the railroad to abandon the entire railway east of McCloud in 2006, but the dinner train has kept rolling, keeping the rails west of McCloud shiny.

Cover image for Rails Around McCloud, isbn: 9780738555645

Richard M. Thompson

Portland's Interurban Railway

9780738596174

$24.99

At the end of the 19th century, Portland led the nation in the development of interurban electric railways. The city became the hub of an electric rail network that spread throughout the Willamette Valley. This is the story of the pioneering local railways that started it all as they built south along the Willamette River to Oregon City and east to Estacada and Bull Run in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. More than 200 historic images illustrate Portland's Interurban Railway from its rudimentary beginnings through the peak years, when passengers rode aboard the finest examples of the car builders' art, to the sudden end in 1958.

Cover image for Portland's Interurban Railway, isbn: 9780738596174

Richard M. Thompson

Portland's Streetcar Lines

9780738581262

$24.99

Portland neighborhoods owe their location, alignment, and growth to a splendid, 19th-century innovation: the streetcar. This city still bears the imprint of the carlines that once wove their way out to suburbs in every direction, including Fulton, Portland Heights, Goose Hollow, Nob Hill, Slabtown, Willamette Heights, Albina, Saint Johns, Irvington, Rose City, Mount Tabor, Montavilla, Mount Scott, and Sellwood. As routes developed, people used them for more than just getting to work; they also discovered the recreational function of street railways while visiting friends, parks, and shopping areas farther from the center of town. The time of the trolley peaked during the 1910s. In 1927, the local street railway system entered a period of slow decline that ended in 1950, when Portland's last city streetcars gave way to buses. This is the history of those classic lines.

Cover image for Portland's Streetcar Lines, isbn: 9780738581262

Walter E. Rice

Rails of California's Central Coast

9780738555911

$24.99

Diversity is the prime characteristic of the California Central Coast's many rail operations. Readers will be attracted by the varying scope of Central Coast—Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Luis Obispo Counties—rail systems. They range from local horsecar services and the narrow-gauge electrified plant railroad that served the Santa Cruz Cement Company at Davenport to the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Line and its engineering marvel Cuesta Grade, highlighted by the world-famous horseshoe curve. Local streetcar systems and long-ceased regional railroads are part of the area's rail legacy. Rare historic images blended with contemporary photography chronicle the region's railways from times past to the present.

Cover image for Rails of California's Central Coast, isbn: 9780738555911

Paul C. Trimble

Railways of San Francisco

9780738528878

$24.99

It may be hard to believe now, but San Francisco was once dominated by railways. Before private cars crowded this hemmed-in city, rail was the only way to get around the challenging terrain, and the rail industry rose to the task with many innovative systems. Some of these were herculean, with massive bores through rocky hills, or elaborate cable and counterweight systems to handle steep inclines. Others were simpler, horse-drawn affairs that took passengers from the downtown and waterfront areas to outlying districts. The distinct flavor of San Francisco's neighborhoods owes much to the early rails, as these cars enabled residents to form their own enclaves and still interact with the commercial heart of the city. Some rail systems presaged today's commuter lifestyle-one even ran all the way down Mission Street to far-off San Mateo. Only a few of the many rail systems that once served this city remain.

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Campbell Historical Mus Store

Campbell

9780738529172

$24.99

The charming city of Campbell sits amid bustling urban neighbors in California's Silicon Valley. For many years known as the Orchard City, Campbell is still very much a small town clinging fiercely to its identity. Benjamin Campbell founded a hay and grain farm on what is now downtown Campbell in 1851. Shrewdly selling off one of his acres for $5 for a railroad depot, Campbell soon subdivided his farm. The resulting town evolved into a rail center for shipping fruit across the continent and around the globe. Campbell Fruit Growers' Union, a large co-operative, sent apricots and prunes to dry yards that were at one time the largest in the world, and canneries like the J.C. Ainsley Packing Company and Geo. E. Hyde & Company became local giants.

Cover image for Campbell, isbn: 9780738529172

Robert V. Goss

Livingston

9780738570440

$24.99

In January 1883, barely a month after the Northern Pacific Railroad (NPRR ) finished laying tracks to the last crossing of the Yellowstone River, Minnesota's Winona Daily Republican proclaimed Livingston as the future great city of the Yellowstone. With the arrival of the NPRR in 1882, the town boomed as it became the division headquarters for the railroad. Its future secured by the largest machine shops and roundhouse west of Minnesota, Livingston rapidly grew from frontier town to progressive city. By late 1883, its downtown area of substantial brick buildings housed more than 100 businesses, and supported a residential area of 2,000 stalwart citizens. Situated at the junction of the Northern Pacific branch to Yellowstone National Park, Livingston hosted the majority of the early tourist trade to America's Wonderland of the West.

Cover image for Livingston, isbn: 9780738570440

Jim Dawson

Los Angeles's Angels Flight

9780738558127

$24.99

From 1901 to 1969, Angels Flight was America's most famous incline railway, familiar from its many appearances on postcards and in pulp fiction and film noir. It inspired the titles of five novels, including a 1999 best seller, and three films. Angels Flight's two colorful trolleys glided up and down the side of Bunker Hill in the heart of Los Angeles, carrying 100 million passengers between a downtown business district and a Victorian aerie that gradually deteriorated into a gritty slum. When the city turned Bunker Hill into an acropolis of skyscrapers, Angels Flight was packed up like a boy's electric train set and stored away for nearly 30 years. After a restoration in the mid-1990s that led to a fatal accident, Angels Flight has reopened and is now ready to claim its next chapters in Los Angeles history.

Cover image for Los Angeles's Angels Flight, isbn: 9780738558127

Kenneth G. Johnsen

Yakima Valley Transportation Company

9780738581033

$24.99

The National Register of Historic Places lists the Yakima Valley Transportation Company (YVT) as the last intact early 20th century electric interurban railroad in America. From its beginning in 1907, the YVT was no quitter, surviving a takeover by the Union Pacific, large financial losses as the last trolley railroad in Washington state, attempts at dieselization, and a concerted effort to put the company in its grave. Thanks to the efforts of local preservationists, YVT trolleys are still in operation. The railroad and its infrastructure never changed. What is seen today is what was built 100 years ago—a living slice of history. Images of Rail: Yakima Valley Transportation Company is the most authoritative chronicle of the famous YVT yet compiled.

Cover image for Yakima Valley Transportation Company, isbn: 9780738581033

Ed Austin

The Oregonian Railway

9781467130318

$24.99

To those with an interest in railroad history in the United States, mention of the words narrow gauge may bring to mind the extensive three-foot-gauge railroads of Colorado and Utah or perhaps the famous two-foot-gauge lines in Maine. However, few would think first of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Nonetheless, between 1877 and 1893, an extensive narrow-gauge railroad developed in Oregon— one that had aspirations of crossing the Cascade Mountains and connecting with the Central Pacific Railroad, thus giving Oregon its first access to the transcontinental railroad system. It is this railroad system, from its inception in 1877 to the present day, that Ed Austin explores herein.

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Joseph Matthew Govednik

Southwest Washington Logging Railroads

9781467162777

$24.99

Admirers of the power of trains and process of logging will revel in the images included in Southwest Washington Railroads, which features the progress of railways in the northwest and the developments made by this prolific era.

Southwest Washington was famous for its old-growth trees and rich timber resources during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The logging railroad marks the era between logs being dragged out with horses or oxen and the introduction of truck and road transport. These railroads provided logging companies with greater opportunity to reach inland areas and access larger timber resources. Logging companies such as Ostrander, B.F. Brock, Doty Lumber and Shingle, and Polson Logging Company required railroads to transport harvested timber to mills or to rivers, where logs would float to mills downstream. Railroads carried the labor, equipment, and camp materials to work locations. Though most of these logging businesses are gone, many roads and place names are attributed to these companies. Over time, the farmed tree and logging truck took over. Today, stacks of these smaller farmed trees are seen near the Western Washington ports of Longview and Kalama, replacing the giant trees of the past. Images of America: Logging Railroads of Southwest Washington is filled with images of the timber harvesting past and the golden age of railroad logging.

The photographs in this book are courtesy of resources at county museums and archives that comprise Southwest Washington. Joseph Matthew Govednik is the museum director of the Cowlitz County Historical Museum in Kelso, Washington.

Cover image for Southwest Washington Logging Railroads, isbn: 9781467162777

Walter Rice

San Francisco's California Street Cable Cars

9780738559636

$24.99

San Francisco's internationally recognized cable cars are the symbol of the individual character of a great city. The California Street cable car line is one of only three remaining lines in the city. The California Street Railway, or Cal Cable, was developed and opened by Leland Stanford, one of the builders of the transcontinental railroad and later founder of Stanford University. Indeed, the iconic line, intimately connected with some of the West's pioneer businessmen, was sold, expanded, and reached its peak mileage just after 1890, only to be destroyed in the great earthquake and fire of 1906. As resilient as the city it served, Cal Cable was rebuilt and lasted as an independent business longer than any other private San Francisco transit operation. Cut down to its present form in 1954, that remnant and its double-ended cars survive as an integral part of today's cable car system.

Cover image for San Francisco's California Street Cable Cars, isbn: 9780738559636

William Burg

Sacramento's Streetcars

9780738531472

$24.99

Until 1947, Sacramento's streetcars linked a bustling downtown district with residential neighborhoods, workplaces, and a growing series of suburbs. Starting with horse-drawn cars on Front Street, the streetcar system owned by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company expanded to include Midtown, Curtis Park, Land Park, Oak Park, and East Sacramento. But PG&E was not alone; two other companies ran streetcar routes downtown, along with suburban lines to West Sacramento, North Sacramento, Rio Linda, Elverta, Colonial Heights, and Colonial Acres. Sacramentans rode the cars to work, to school, to the state fair, and just about anywhere they wanted to go until the streetcars were replaced by buses owned by National City Lines.

Cover image for Sacramento's Streetcars, isbn: 9780738531472

U.R. Sharma

Morgan Hill

9780738529776

$24.99

Morgan Hill lies at the foot of stately El Toro Mountain in southern Santa Clara Valley. Martin Murphy Sr. settled here in 1845, and only a generation later the Murphy family had managed to acquire 70,000 acres. Martin's son Daniel owned over a million acres in the western United States when his only daughter, the beautiful Diana, secretly married Hiram Morgan Hill in 1882. Hiram and Diana inherited part of the original ranch, where they built their lovely Villa Mira Monte. Although the Southern Pacific Railroad tried to name the nearby depot Huntington, passengers always asked to stop at Morgan Hill's ranch, a popular christening of a community surrounded by thriving orchards and vineyards. After World War II, Morgan Hill became a desirable suburb and has remained so through the birth of Silicon Valley.

Cover image for Morgan Hill, isbn: 9780738529776

Rob Richardson

Railroads and Depots of Orange County

9780738580111

$24.99

Railroads have been a part of Orange County for over 130 years. The great names of American railroading--Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe; Southern Pacific; and Union Pacific--were firmly planted here by the early 1920s and linked with the largest interurban rail system in the United States, the famed Pacific Electric Railway. Thousands of people passed through Orange County's depots during the 1940s as they came to serve at the many military bases located here during World War II. The names have since changed, and yet the county's rail scene remains as dynamic as ever, with Amtrak, Metrolink, and amusement park railroads joining the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific. Railroad depots, new and old, are located across Orange County and continue on both as vital parts of history and the future of transportation for America's fifth most populated county.

Cover image for Railroads and Depots of Orange County, isbn: 9780738580111

Jolie Anderson Gallagher

Montezuma Hills, The

9781467163507

$24.99

Sheltered between marsh and flatlands, the Montezuma Hills of Solano County are home to generations of farmers, fishermen, and folks seeking respite from cities. The community began in 1846 with a lone adobe house, built on a hillside for a future Mormon colony. The Mormons never arrived; however, many others did. Homesteaders, tradesmen, and innovators found a river of bountiful salmon, fields lush with wild oats, and opportunities to build new lives. Thriving villages sprouted along the sloughs—Collinsville, Birds Landing, and Denverton. Although these towns are nearly forgotten, the pioneers’ legacy has left an enduring imprint on the land. This book honors the community, the people who settled the area, and their descendants, whose generous contribution of time, memories, and photographs has made this book possible.

Jolie Anderson Gallagher, a fourth-generation descendant of Danish immigrants, was born and raised in the Montezuma Hills. After earning a degree in English/creative writing at the University of California, Davis, she worked as a reporter for the Dixon Tribune before launching a 35-year career in technical writing. Although now retired in the Colorado mountains, Gallagher will forever be that farm girl who ran barefoot through fields of wheat.

Cover image for Montezuma Hills, The, isbn: 9781467163507

Dan Bolyard

Big Bend Railroads

9781467132534

$24.99

The Big Bend area had its start with a land grant given by President Lincoln to the Northern Pacific Railway. As such, the railway company heavily promoted the area to encourage settlement and populate the station sites along the way. Towns began to develop in the late 1880s; prior to that time, the few settlers had a difficult time getting around. Despite snow, floods, fires, wrecks, human error, sabotage, and government regulation, the railroads continued and were able to serve the communities and help them survive. The earliest lines were built largely by man and beast with few large machines. The last transcontinental line in the Big Bend, the Milwaukee Road, featured groundbreaking technology in the form of electrically operated locomotives. The building of Grand Coulee Dam brought more railroad lines, with tracks that featured grades and locomotives normally seen on logging railroads, to bring in construction materials to the largest concrete structure in the world at the time.

Cover image for Big Bend Railroads, isbn: 9781467132534

Dale W. Jones

The Milwaukee Connection

9781467128803

$24.99

In the late 1890s, the Union Pacific, Northern Pacific, and Great Northern Railways had a firm grip on all West Coast rail traffic. In 1905, Milwaukee Road officials voted to extend the line into Seattle, securing Pacific Coast markets. As the Milwaukee built into Montana, numerous obstacles emerged; frigid winter temperatures and steep mountain grades challenged steam-powered operations. In the early 1910s, electric locomotives became a viable alternative for steam engines in long-haul rail service; at the same time, waterpower for generating electricity was developing in the Northwest. The mines and smelters of Butte and Anaconda supplied the resources needed to electrify 440 miles of track in Montana and Idaho. The longevity of the Milwaukee Road electrification into the 1970s highlights the determination of faithful employees on what was known as America's Resourceful Railroad.

Cover image for The Milwaukee Connection, isbn: 9781467128803

Jim Walker

Los Angeles Railway Yellow Cars

9780738547916

$24.99

Local rail-borne transit in Los Angeles began with horsecars in 1874, evolving with cable-powered and later electric-powered passenger vehicles. Yellow Cars describes the principal local transit system in and around Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century. The canary-colored local streetcars formed the inner-neighborhood lines between a vast rail network of main lines known as the interurban system, primarily the Pacific Electric Railway Red Cars, which spiderwebbed throughout Los Angeles County and into Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. Rail tycoon Henry Edwards Huntington consolidated several independent lines into this great interurban empire. He sold it in 1910 to the Southern Pacific Railroad, keeping the Los Angeles Railway Yellow Cars. These evocative photographs illustrate travel during decades of change, progress, economic setbacks, war, and postwar retrenchment, when streetcar service was taken over by bus lines.

Cover image for Los Angeles Railway Yellow Cars, isbn: 9780738547916

Richard M. Thompson

Portland's Streetcars

9780738531151

$24.99

Street railways arrived early in Portland and made lasting social and economic contributions that are still apparent in the layout and character of the city's neighborhoods today. During the 1890s, streetcar lines spread rapidly into the West Hills and across the Willamette River. The technological prowess of the growing Rose City was reflected in the largest horsecar in the Northwest, the second steepest cable car grade in the nation, the first true interurban railway, and an annual illuminated trolley parade. By the dawn of the 20th century, Portland could boast of the largest electric railway system in the West, as well as its first eight-wheeled streetcar. The streetcars lasted into the late 1950s here, and then, after a hiatus of nearly 30 years, were rediscovered by a new generation of urban planners.

Cover image for Portland's Streetcars, isbn: 9780738531151

Richard M. Thompson

Willamette Valley Railways

9780738556017

$24.99

Willamette Valley Railways tells the story of the electric interurban railways that ran through Oregon's Willamette Valley and of the streetcars that operated in the towns they served. Long before modern light rail vehicles, electric trains were providing Portland and the Willamette Valley with reliable, elegant transportation that was second to none. Between 1908 and 1915, two large systems, the Oregon Electric Railway and the Southern Pacific Red Electrics, joined smaller competitors constructing railways throughout the region. Portland became the hub of an impressive interurban network in a frenzy of electric railway building. Yet all too soon, this brief but glorious interurban era was over. Highway improvement and the growth of automobile ownership made electric passenger trains unprofitable in the sparsely populated valley. By the early 1930s, the company that had launched the nation's first true interurban was the only one still offering passenger service here.

Cover image for Willamette Valley Railways, isbn: 9780738556017

Chris Hunter

Ocean Shore Railroad

9780738529387

$24.99

With one of the world's most scenic backdrops as a brilliant seascape for passengers, the Ocean Shore Railroad skirted northern California's coastline to service communities south of San Francisco for the first two decades of the 20th century. As impressive as it was idealistic, the line was held prisoner by natural forces that eventually took too much of a toll to keep its striking route churning. Today's Highway 1 traces the passage once paved with tracks, and points to the few remnants of one of California's most well-known excursion lines.

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Matthew Gerald Vurek

California’s Capitol Corridor

9781467124171

$24.99

The "Capitol Corridor" is the name of the Amtrak passenger train route between California's capital, Sacramento, and San Jose, the state's first capital upon admission to the Union in 1850. The scenery between these two areas highlights vastly different land uses; examples include an industrialized shoreline covered with a forest of petroleum refineries, urban areas transitioning from industrial to residential use, and a wildlife refuge disturbed only by the passage of trains. The Capitol Corridor is now an integral part of the transportation scene in Northern California. Since 1991, its equipment and infrastructure have evolved to keep pace with technology as well as the area's dynamic economic and social environment.

Cover image for California’s Capitol Corridor, isbn: 9781467124171

Meghan Walla-Murphy

Fishing on the Russian River

9781467132381

$24.99

The Russian River tells a rich story of Sonoma County, both historically and ecologically. For as long as can be remembered, there has been an intimate relationship between the people of the Russian River and the fish, specifically the salmon and the steelhead. This tale of fishing begins with the Pomo people's communal fishing forays, winds through Russian exploration and early American settlement, and lands in the present time. For millennia, fishing has been a cultural cornerstone on the Russian River. Unfortunately, this once lively and productive salmonid fishery is dying. Overfishing, gravel mining, increased sedimentation from logging and agriculture, dams, and overdevelopment along the riverbanks and tributaries have all caused a decline in salmonid numbers. Thankfully, through collaborative efforts of local residents, nonprofit organizations, ranchers, farmers, and government agencies, fish populations are rebounding.

Cover image for Fishing on the Russian River, isbn: 9781467132381

David Joseph Cantlin

Tacoma Rail

9781467130066

$24.99

Come along for the journey that is today's Tacoma Rail, from its humble beginning as a rickety trolley line to the economic engine that helps power the Port of Tacoma and surrounding communities. Once called the Step Child Utility, today, Tacoma Rail moves more than 82,000 rail shipments on 204 miles of track annually and contributes more than $1.6 million in tax revenues to the city of Tacoma.

Cover image for Tacoma Rail, isbn: 9781467130066

Richard M. Thompson

Lost Oregon Streetcars

9781467136853

$21.99

The streetcars that plied Oregon's small-town streets were every bit as diverse as those in Portland and their history even more fascinating. Learn of the devastating 1922 fire that scorched Astoria's plank road railways and put a halt to its once-thriving streetcar network. Muse over the tale of a beloved white horse named Old Charlie that proved more efficient at powering Albany's streetcars than the alternative steam locomotive. Laugh at the spectacle of university students being carted back to their dormitories on the Eleventh Street Line's special midnight drunk express trains. Take pride in the tiny town of Cherry Grove, which became the first in the West to embrace new battery technology. Local historian Richard Thompson celebrates the lost trolley lines that transported Oregon's people across the state for decades.

Cover image for Lost Oregon Streetcars, isbn: 9781467136853

Shalae A. Larsen

Ogden's Trolley District

9780738595054

$24.99

Descending the hill on Twenty-fifth Street, a streetcar makes its way past the Broom Hotel; to the right, the transition from horse-drawn transportation is exemplified. In 1883, the Ogden City Railway Co. constructed and operated Ogden's first city rail line. These early trolleys were originally mule-drawn, and in 1891, the electric streetcar made its appearance on Ogden city streets. The trolley system grew, and streetcar lines were built nearly every two blocks in the 80-block residential area directly east of downtown Ogden. By the end of the 19th century, the Trolley District was home to the elite and laymen alike. This district, officially listed as the Ogden Central Bench National Historic District, is bordered by Twentieth Street to the north, Thirtieth Street to the south, and Harrison Boulevard to Adams Avenue, east to west, respectively.

Cover image for Ogden's Trolley District, isbn: 9780738595054

Darline Bergere

Ukiah

9780738570402

$24.99

Nestled in the Yokayo Valley, surrounded by coastal ranges, Ukiah officially became a town in 1859 when it broke away from being governed by Sonoma County. Spanish settlers put down roots through land grants and brought their rich culture to the area. Pomo Indians who lived in Ukiah wove baskets, which are collectors' items today throughout the world. Vichy Springs Resort, built in the mid-1800s on the outskirts of Ukiah, had many notable visitors, including Presidents Grant and Harrison, Mark Twain, Robert Lewis Stevenson, and Jack London. Today Ukiah is a city where people still ride their bicycles, and the high school has a homecoming parade before the big game. Farmers, ranchers, and vineyard owners work side by side. Summer months bring the annual Sunday in the Park free concerts, and the area is home to an active performing-arts community as well as several art galleries.

Cover image for Ukiah, isbn: 9780738570402

Fred Runner

Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway

9780738559421

$24.99

A hundred years ago, high on the summit of Mount Tamalpais, stood a grand lodge with a breathtaking view. For 33 years, elegantly dressed men and women came to visit on the gritty steam trains of a famous twisting railroad known affectionately as the Crookedest Railroad in the World. They could dine, dance, and spend the night, and in the morning coast down the mountain in a gravity car. The Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway had 281 curves in 8 1/5 miles. It had a branch into Muir Woods. It was built by business-minded conservationists in seven months in 1896 and climbed from a depot on the dirt streets of Mill Valley through a redwood forest and on to the rocky summit one-half mile above San Francisco Bay.

Cover image for Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway, isbn: 9780738559421

Walter Vielbaum

San Francisco's Interurban to San Mateo

9780738530086

$24.99

It's strange to think that an electric commuter rail line rivaling BART in efficiency, speed, and comfort ran over 100 years ago between San Francisco and San Mateo, but run it did. The 40 Line, or San Mateo Interurban, began in 1892 with an initial segment operating between Market and Steuart Streets out to the county limits on San Jose Avenue. Three years later, the line reached Baden in present-day South San Francisco, and by 1903 service was opened all the way to downtown San Mateo. During the line's heyday, there was talk of extending it down the peninsula from San Mateo to Palo Alto to connect with the Peninsular Railway to San Jose. The 1906 earthquake put this plan on hold. Following much the same route as today's Mission Street, El Camino Real, and Caltrain, the San Mateo Interurban carried over four million passengers a year along its main and spur lines until 1949, when the system was shut down amidst much fanfare.

Cover image for San Francisco's Interurban to San Mateo, isbn: 9780738530086

Guy D. Ball

Tustin

9780738570372

$24.99

Tustin's big early loss was in many ways its salvation. Founding father Columbus Tustin's real estate venture in 1868 found few takers, leading to his fervent campaign to make his town the southern terminus for the Southern Pacific Railroad. The depot duel was won by rival settlement Santa Ana, and Tustin City became just another backwater. Columbus Tustin died embittered, but his namesake, which dropped City in 1899, prospered as a pretty place with charming homes. Many early homes and downtown commercial buildings still survive, and where apricot, walnut, and orange trees once grew at mid century, comfortable tract homes and residential innovations such as Tustin Meadows and Enderle Gardens maintain the distinct small-town feel through Orange County's postwar freeway sprawl and identity loss. Tustin's past also included a wild and ramshackle quicksilver mine at Red Hill and two of the world's largest wooden structures--the Lighter-Than-Air (LTA or blimp) hangars--at Marine Corps Air Station Tustin.

Cover image for Tustin, isbn: 9780738570372

Fullerton Public Library

Fullerton

9780738529400

$24.99

Saber-toothed tigers and wooly mammoths once roamed free in Fullerton. The Gabrielinos, Indians who were on Fullerton lands as long ago as 1,000 years, supplanted these prehistoric animals many years later. When George H. Fullerton made the decision to route the Santa Fe Railroad through the fledging townsite in 1887, he secured Fullerton's economic future. The right-of-way for the railroad traffic would spur the growth of the Valencia orange industry—started by a descendent of the famous Johnny Appleseed—as well as the production of oil wells that still pump to this day.

Cover image for Fullerton, isbn: 9780738529400

Mary Bryner Winn

Corona

9780738529912

$24.99

Several times in the late 20th century, Corona was cited as the fastest-growing city in California, doubling and tripling its former sleepy-town size of around 25,000 in the 1970s to 150,000 in a matter of just decades. Corona has come a long way from its former offshoot identity as South Riverside in the late 19th century. Incorporated as Corona in 1896, it
survived as a dry-farming community until the arrival of citrus crops. Its status as a way station for travelers between Los Angeles and the outlying desert communities was dramatically altered in the mid-1910s when it became an internationally recognized road-racing draw for the likes of Barney Oldfield and other great speedsters of the day. As a
bedroom community today for workers in Orange and Los Angeles Counties, it is virtually a prototype of Southern California suburban growth.

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Con Trumbull

Steam Railroads in Central Wyoming

9781467163217

$24.99

The first steam locomotives entered central Wyoming in 1886 as the rails were laid, and the railroad would soon become the driving force for agriculture, industry, and commerce.

The two main lines, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad and the Chicago & North Western Railway, both operated steam until diesel-electric locomotives began to replace them. This journey will focus on the lines between Valentine, Nebraska, and central Wyoming as well as the survey work done beyond the town of Lander, Wyoming. The areas around the towns of Douglas, Glenrock, Casper, and Riverton will all be examined. The last steam locomotive in regular service would leave the region in 1952, and with its departure would come sweeping changes to how the railroads of the region operated and of their connections to the communities they served. The majority of the photographs presented have never been published.

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Alfred Mullett

Portland Terminal Railroad Company

9781467115674

$24.99

The Portland Terminal Railroad Company (PTRC), formerly the Northern Pacific Terminal Company (NPTCo.), was created to be the heart of Henry Villard's Northwest rail empire. The NPTCo. survived the whims of the financial markets, two world wars, and numerous corporate mergers. It reached its zenith in the 1950s and changed its name to Portland Terminal Railroad Company in 1965. The company continues to operate as a successful business, serving the local freight needs of the parent railroads and Guild's Lake industrial district.

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Walter Vielbaum

San Francisco's Market Street Railway

9780738529677

$24.99

The Market Street Railway Company thrived in an age when rails ruled San Francisco. Spanning the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the boom times of World War II, it had a long and legendary lifetime that is deeply ingrained in the city's early identity. Gradually, however, it became challenged by the emergence of the automobile, cheaper motor coaches, and nickel jitneys—competing cars on the same routes. The MSRy painted the fronts of its cars white to show up well in San Francisco's misty weather, and for many years people called them the White Front cars. Franchise competition and city regulations undid MSRy, and its assets were absorbed into MUNI in 1944. However, the name lives on as the nonprofit Market Street Railway organization, dedicated to preserving the history of this company and also to retrofitting early streetcars from across the globe, putting them back in service on Market Street.

Cover image for San Francisco's Market Street Railway, isbn: 9780738529677

Henry J. Luna

Niles Canyon Railways

9780738529837

$24.99

All aboard for this photographic journey through the unique railroad history of Niles Canyon, near the city of Fremont. The melodic wail of the steam whistle first echoed off these canyon walls in 1866 when the Western Pacific Railroad laid track into Niles as part of a planned route from San Jose to Sacramento. That was three years before the transcontinental route from Sacramento to Omaha was completed in May 1869. Four months after the driving of the Golden Spike that joined the eastern and western United States by rail, the connecting route from Sacramento to Oakland through Niles Canyon was finished—the very last leg of a rail route that truly joined the Atlantic to the Pacific waters for the first time.

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Deborah Coleen Cook

Amador Central Railroad

9780738575506

$24.99

Resting in the community park in Ione, California, is old No. 7, affectionately known as "Iron Ivan," the last steam engine that served on the Amador Central Railroad. At the southern edge of town, one can glimpse the rails it once rode. Built in 1904, the Amador Central Railroad--a 12-mile, standard-gauge short line that snakes its way through the Sierra Nevada foothills from Ione to Martell--served both passengers and freighters for a century until 2004. It was said to be the slowest line in California, with over 75 curves and a grade of four percent in some places. In 2010, Sierra Pacific Industries sold the railroad to a nonprofit consortium to preserve the historic line.

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Barbara Perry Bauer

Treasure Valley's Electric Railway

9780738596334

$24.99

Idaho's Treasure Valley, named for the gold and silver once mined in the area, encompasses Ada and Canyon Counties in the southwest corner of the state. Boise City was founded in 1863 when the US Army built a fort at the crossroads of the Oregon Trail and the road to the Boise Basin gold mines. Boise soon became the major distribution center for supplies and fresh food for miners. By 1890, with the development of agriculture and the expansion of the railroad, towns stretched west along the Boise River to the Oregon border. A boom in the early 20th century was due in part to the electric railway, a modern transportation system linking Boise to the communities of Meridian, Eagle, Nampa, Caldwell, and Middleton. The electric railway era lasted from 1891 to 1928 and supported the growth of neighborhoods and communities, inspired the creation of local parks, and provided recreation and entertainment opportunities to rural and urban residents.

Cover image for Treasure Valley's Electric Railway, isbn: 9780738596334

Dolores Gomez

Brisbane

9780738570488

$24.99

Beginning with Native American encampments on the slopes and valleys of San Bruno Mountain, through Spanish occupation and Mexican land grants, to today's vibrant suburban community, Brisbane's story is an intriguing one. The town was either named for newspaperman Arthur Brisbane, or for the Australian coastal city of Brisbane, depending on the story. During the Great Depression, many people wanting to escape crowded San Francisco for a simpler, less urban life found it in Brisbane, which began with dairies and ranches and gradually grew up along the hillsides radiating from Visitacion Avenue. Brisbane has always been known for its spirit of independence, and the people here have been able to participate in small-town democracy more fully than in larger cities.

Cover image for Brisbane, isbn: 9780738570488

Sydney Stevens

North Beach Peninsula's I. R. & N.

9780738570204

$24.99

For nearly 40 years, the quirky little narrow-gauge railroad, begun in 1889 by the Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company, ran along the North Beach Peninsula in southwestern Washington. The train provided the primary transportation link from Ilwaco in the south to Nahcotta in the north, making peninsula communities accessible to one another and supplying a reliable route to outside markets for the area's major industries—oystering, logging, and cranberry farming. A tide table, not a timetable, governed the railroad's schedule, allowing coordination with the steamers that met the train at either end of its daily journeys. Old-timers of the area still speak affectionately of the train's unorthodox schedule and its informal and accommodating service. And they remember with fondness that the IR &N was widely known as the Irregular, Ramblin' and Never-get-there Railroad.

Cover image for North Beach Peninsula's I. R. & N., isbn: 9780738570204

D. C. Jesse Burkhardt

Railroads of Hillsboro

9781467132367

$24.99

Hillsboro, Oregon, always seemed destined to be an important railroad town. When the first trains arrived in Hillsboro in 1871 under the banner of the Oregon & California Railroad, the town began to develop into a key railroad junction point. Hillsboro was strategically located just 20 miles from the booming Portland metropolis, a regional center of manufacturing and trade, and by 1911, Hillsboro was where several rail lines branched off. One line headed west toward Tillamook, where the railroad tapped rich timber resources along the Oregon coast. Another line cut south into the fertile Willamette Valley, accessing prime agricultural lands that produced a bounty of wheat and other commodities. A third route carried passengers and goods to and from Portland and the neighboring communities of Cornelius and Forest Grove. As these routes developed, heavy volumes of freight began rolling into Hillsboro. At the same time, travelers moved through Hillsboro on passenger trains, including the Southern Pacific Railroad's famed Red Electrics and the Oregon Electric Railway's interurbans, which advertised passenger service with no soot and no cinders.

Cover image for Railroads of Hillsboro, isbn: 9781467132367

Julie R. Monroe

Latah County

9780738531335

$24.99

Its name derived from the Nez Perce language, Latah County is the only county in the United States to have been created by an Act of Congress. The abundance of its natural resources—from blue fields of camas to deep veins of gold, from great stands of white pine trees to vast green grasslands—attracted a diversity of dreamers seeking only the opportunity to build their own futures. Nestled in the heart of the Palouse, an agricultural area of extraordinary production, Latah County is a land of timber and, at Potlatch, was once the site of one of the largest sawmills in the world. At Moscow, it is also the home of the state's land-grant institution, the University of Idaho. From the forests of Troy and the ridges of Juliaetta and Kendrick, from the homesteads of Genesee to Bovill's hunting lodge and Deary's town site, Latah County has had a rich and varied history.

Cover image for Latah County, isbn: 9780738531335

Douglas W. Mengers

San Diego Trolleys

9781467126649

$24.99

Starting with the first horse-drawn trolleys introduced by the San Diego Streetcar Company in 1886, San Diego's history included the growth and decline of several trolley systems. After electricity arrived, San Diego was the site of early experimentation for electric trolleys on the West Coast and home to a short-lived cable car system. In the 1890s, sugar baron John D. Spreckels purchased these failed lines and consolidated them into the San Diego Electric Railway. This railway expanded rapidly, leading to the development of new trolley suburbs at the turn of the century, including North Park, Normal Heights, and Mission Beach. Ridership waned with the Depression and the introduction of autobuses, and though it temporarily rose during the war years, this decline led to the dismantling of the trolley system in April 1949.

Cover image for San Diego Trolleys, isbn: 9781467126649

Arthur Sommers

Railroads of Placer County

9781467128407

$7.99

Though small in geographic size, Placer County is large in its rich history of railroading in California. These vintage-photograph postcards showcase the 14 different railroads that did or still do exist in some association with Placer County. There were narrow-gauge and standard-gauge, long transcontinental, and short point-to-point railroads. Some railroads were fully contained within the county, and others just touched the county. Some railroads were short-lived operations, while others operated for decades. One railroad still functions today, undiminished after 150 years in service.

Cover image for Railroads of Placer County, isbn: 9781467128407

Dale W. Jones

The Great Northern Railway in Marias Pass

9781467126786

$7.99

Montana's Marias Pass is the lowest rail crossing through the Rocky Mountains. The tracks snake through narrow canyons, traverse the swift Middle Fork of the Flathead River, and twist through numerous snowsheds and tunnels to crest the 5,213-foot Continental Divide. James Jerome Hill was the driving force behind Great Northern Railway's mission to find the most economical route to the Pacific coast, with surveyor John F. Stevens taking a major role in locating the pass. Browning is the eastern gateway into Marias Pass as the railroad approaches the Rocky Mountain Front; continuing west from Summit, the tracks parallel Bear Creek and the Middle Fork of the Flathead River downgrade through Essex to Glacier National Park and into the Flathead Valley.

Cover image for The Great Northern Railway in Marias Pass, isbn: 9781467126786

Richard M. Thompson

Slabtown Streetcars

9781467133555

$24.99

No area of Portland, Oregon, played a more important role in street railway history than Northwest Portland and the neighborhood known as Slabtown. In 1872, the city's first streetcars passed close to Slabtown as they headed for a terminus in the North End. Slabtown was also home to the first streetcar manufacturing factory on the West Coast. In fact, until locally built streetcars began to be replaced by trolleys from large national builders in the 1910s, more than half of all rolling stock was manufactured in shops located at opposite ends of Northwest Twenty-third Avenue. All streetcars operating on the west side of the Willamette River, including those used on the seven lines that served Northwest Portland, were stored in Slabtown. When the end finally came in 1950, Slabtown residents were riding two of the last three city lines.

Cover image coming soon for Slabtown Streetcars

Robin Michael Roberts

Hanford

9780738529486

$24.99

Hanford, created by the Southern Pacific Railroad and named for paymaster James Madison Hanford, is located in the southern portion of the San Joaquin Valley near the San Joaquin and Kings Rivers. Incorporated in 1891 and named the seat of Kings County two years later, this city has grown from humble origins to become a center for business and government while also maintaining its agricultural tradition in ranching, dairy farms, vineyards, and other crops. The story of Hanford is captured here in vintage photographs that detail its history from the Tache tribe of the Yokut Indians, who were first to inhabit the region, to the coming of the railroad and the infamous Mussel Slough tragedy that led to monopoly reform laws, and finally to the building of the town itself.

Cover image for Hanford, isbn: 9780738529486

Julie R. Monroe

Moscow

9780738524252

$24.99

Centered in the glorious Palouse, a richly fertile area, the small Idaho town of Moscow was once home to the Nez Perce, who introduced the famous spotted Appaloosa horses. The intimate Moscow feel inspired by current residents has persisted since the original homesteaders settled here, a place they called Paradise Valley. Resisting the anonymity of many rural agricultural towns, Moscow proudly claims an educational, civic, commercial, and cultural reputation far beyond a town of its size, a monument to the people who elevated the community.