<p><span class="deck">Granddaddy of all desert mining discoveries was the Comstock Lode, which sent the Far West on a silver stampede to Nevada’s Washoe country a century ago.</span> </p>
<p><span class="deck"> An Imperial colony on our West Coast was their aim; Fort Ross was their military outpost; and the stakes—higher than they realized</span> </p>
<p><span class="deck"> Farce in the Bedroom, Bedlam at the Bar<br />
Senator Sharon’s Discarded Rose Packed a Pistol, Her Lawyer a Knife. Blood Flowed at Their Last “Appeal,” as They Ambushed a Federal Judge.<br />
as They Ambushed a Federal Judge</span> </p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> He never packed a gun or led a posse or burned down a homesteader's hut, but in his time Henry Miller owned more land than anyone else in the West.</span> </span></p>
<p>The former Attorney General of California recalls the painful internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the efforts to help them return.</p>
<p><span class="deck"> Carl Fisher thought Americans should be able to drive across their country, but it took a decade and a world war to finish his road</span> </p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Westward with the course of empire Colonel Jonathan Drake Stevenson took his way in 1846. With him went the denizens of New York’s Tammany wards, oyster cellars, and gin mills—the future leaders of California.</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> This puckish, nearly forgotten California architect built his own distinctive style on the simple principle that beauty alone endures</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> California has always been as much a state of mind as a geographical entity. For the better part of two centuries, artists have been defining its splendid promise.</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck">For many children who accompanied their parents west across the continent in the 1840s and '50s, the journey was a supreme adventure.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> From Fort Ticonderoga to the Plaza Hotel, from Appomattox Courthouse to Bugsy Siegel’s weird rose garden in Las Vegas, the present-day scene is enriched by knowledge of the American past</span> </p>
<p><span class="deck"> No city has more energetically obliterated the remnants of its past. And yet no city has a greater sense of its history.</span> </p>
<p><span class="deck">To keep Upton Sinclair from becoming governor of California in 1934, his opponents invented a whole new kind of campaign.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">The author leads a search for hidden treasure in the amazingly complete documentary history of a California ghost town.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">When you’re lining up a putt on the close-cropped green, there are ghosts at your shoulder. More than any other game, golf is played with a sense of tradition.</span></p>
<p>The first caravans lumbered across 2000 miles of dangerous, inhospitable wilderness in 1843, the year of the Great Migration. To a surprising degree, it’s still possible to follow something very like their route.</p>
<p><span class="deck">The Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery in 1865, but right on into this century, sailors were routinely drugged, beaten, and kidnapped to man America’s mighty merchant marine.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Though it appears to have sprung up overnight, the inspiration of free-spirited hackers, it in fact was born in Defense Department Cold War projects of the 1950s.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck"><lead_in> AFTER TRYING TO PRODUCE DRINKABLE WINE</lead_in> for 300 years, we finally got the hang of it ... so effectively that, in the last quarter-century, our results have raised the quality of winemaking all over the world.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Save for the Civil War, what occurred after a carpenter glimpsed a flash of yellow 150 years ago in Northern California was the biggest story of the 19th century. Richard Reinhard examines what we think we know (and don’t) about the people who made it happen.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">For the brilliant songwriter behind the Beach Boys, the endless summer gave way to a very hard winter. Now, he is back, with a work that wants to be no less than a musical history of the American dream.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> It was tough going, but the road over the Sierras <span class="typestyle"> could</span> be used by men who understood how to travel </span></p>
<p>A junior Army officer, acting on secret orders from the president, bluffed a far stronger Mexican force into conceding North America's westernmost province to the United States.</p>
<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-619cd7a5-d1e7-3410-8328-514fc270be4e" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt;">President James K. Polk expanded U.S. territory by a third by war-making and shrewd negotiating.</p>
<p>With five major exploring expeditions west of the Mississippi, John C. Frémont redefined the country — with the help of his wife’s promotional skills.</p>
