Download or read book Fascinating True Tales from Old California written by Colleen Adair Fliedner and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-04-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over four centuries, California has been an ever-changing landscape of innovation and revolution, triumph and tragedy. In Fascinating True Tales from Old California, author Colleen Adair Fliedner mines the history of the Golden State to collect more than fifty tales of famous Californians and their escapades from 1542 through 1940. For many, like James Lick, Leland Stanford, and John Downey, California was a place to strike it rich. Others sought freedom and a new beginning, including Chinese immigrants and African Americans, like philanthropist and freed slave, Biddy Mason. And still some characters just wanted to live their lives outside of society’s rules, like swindler James Reavis or the cross-dressing stagecoach driver, Charley Parkhurst. Readers will be entertained and enlightened as they take a trip through California’s colorful past.