1,200 Twisting Turns in 20 Miles – Oh My! Aficionados still talk about the Ridge Route, the iconic byway linking Los Angeles with Bakersfield. The earliest version of this memorable road – Ridge Route 1.0, if you will – was simply dirt, graded and oiled. That made it a huge improvement over the rough carreta […]
A Short History of Lebec, CA
A Short History of Lebec (Part 1): Peter Lebec may have lost his battle with a grizzly bear almost 200 years ago. But Lebec’s name still graces the California valley where he died in 1837. Today, the small town of Lebec, California – named after the […]
The Story of the Ridge Route (Part 4)
The Ridge Route’s Later Years (And Efforts To Preserve It): The early Ridge Route didn’t stay un-tinkered-with for long. Less than a decade after the 1919 concrete cap dried, ideas began percolating about expanding its two paved lanes to three. (For the Ridge Route’s earlier history, check out Parts 1, 2, and 3!) Work on […]
The Story of the Ridge Route: Part 3
With its fresh concrete cap finally in place, the new, upgraded Ridge Route was ready to welcome travelers again in 1919. (If you missed the beginning of this story, here are Part 1 and Part 2!) The journey from L.A. to Bakersfield still wasn’t for […]
The Story of the Ridge Route (Part 2):
Paving the Ridge Route: As you’ll remember from Part 1 of this story, the original Ridge Route between L.A. and Bakersfield was just a simple oil-coated dirt track. When grading was completed in 1915, that first early version cost a mere $450,000 – roughly $11 million today.* Not bad for a 30-mile stretch […]
Discovering Hidden Graves at Al Tahoe Cemetery
We’re the luckiest of the lucky: this past summer, we got to watch as experts searched for long-forgotten graves at Tahoe, using ground-penetrating radar! I’ll confess we knew almost nothing about the historic Al Tahoe Pioneer Cemetery before our visit. Turns out this small cemetery near the shore of Lake Tahoe […]
Three Bullets, Two Julias: What Happened Next? (Part 3)
For Nelson Savier, Hamilton, Nevada probably seemed like the perfect place to hide. No doubt he was hoping that the sordid tale of his mistress’s murder wouldn’t follow him to a remote mining town. And best of all, he’d left his murderous wife Julia back in California. But as […]
Three Bullets, Two Julias, & One Philandering Husband
A Family Affair . . . . Like all good mysteries, this one began with a tiny clue. An old newspaper from August, 1880 happened to mention a man who’d breathed his last at Walley’s Hot Springs. His name, we discovered, was Benjamin F. Seely. But who was Seely? Ah, and that’s where the twisting […]
History Clues in Monitor Canyon
Locals know the secret of wild hops growing in Monitor Canyon – modern-day left-overs from an old brewery that quenched the thirst of silver miners in the 1870s. But how did those hops plants find their way here in the first place? Ah, meet brewer Nicholas Piequet! Piequet arrived […]
The Story of the Ridge Route (Part 1)
The Story of the Ridge Route (Part 1): How did the Ridge Route get started? First, of course, came early game trails and Indian footpaths. When the Spaniards arrived, their carreta roads made use of those same rough tracks. They’d follow the route of today’s Temple Street north through what we now call Hollywood to […]
The Forgotten Story Behind the Lebec Hotel: Thomas O’Brien
He always carried a Colt .45 under that natty suit jacket. “Irish-stubborn” about business, he was filled with exuberance, too. Over the years he founded half-dozen saloons and gambling halls from Kingman to the Klondike. Yet he didn’t drink or gamble (or so, at least, his family said). Meet Thomas O’Brien, little-known proprietor of the […]
Silver Mountain City: Finding Your Way There
Today, Silver Mountain City is a ghost of a ghost town. An army of pines has invaded the town’s cross streets, and only the traces of hand-dug cellars and rock foundations remain where noisy saloons and thriving businesses once stood. The old stone jail, once a proud centerpiece of town, is a jumble of broken blocks. But […]