The greatest California mountain man of them all was Grizzly Adams.      He was also one of the most mysterious men in the history of the American West.      In this colorful biography, historian Richard Dillon chronicles the life of the man from a dull New England town who cultivated a society of bears in the wilderness of the West and went on to be one of the greatest showmen.    &nbsp...

Burnt-Out Fires deals with a very dark period of American history, a period that, until recently, had been purposefully forgotten ... a period that hopefully will cause a re-evaluation of the American ideals and dreams.Everyone pointed to the Modocs as “model Indians.” Living on the Oregon-California border, they had assimilated the American culture more than any other Indian tribe. They had accepted the white man’s way, dressing in cowboy clothes and working as farm hands...

     Richard Dillon, one of California’s premier historians, tells the compelling story of San Francisco’s exotic pre-1906 Chinatown when vicious hoodlum gangs held sway. Chinatown, as demonstrated by Dillon’s fast-paced narrative, became a cauldron of chaos teeming with thugs, prostitutes, gamblers, and warlords preying on scores of helpless victims. .      As the Tong Wars ripped through San Francisco’s Chinatown, the Chinese inhabitants li...

     The Texas Argonauts were on the march west as early as January, 1849 —a remarkable circumstance when it is recalled that the famous tea caddy of gold dust which set off the gold fever in the “States” did not reach Washington, D. C, until December 7, 1848. From Brownsville, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio, the dusty trails of the gold seekers crisscrossed through West Texas and northern Mexico. Among the travelers was young attorney Benjamin Butler Harris, who joine...

     Award-winning historian Richard Dillon deals up intriguing vignettes on sixty-three men and women who helped shaped California into the colorful state that it is.      Dillon, whose work on Meriwether Lewis has appeared on the New York Times best-seller list, presents these California Pioneers in short, lively and informative sketches that capture the special qualities of their unusual and stimulating lives.    &nb...

     There are no tales like high-sea tales and here’s a baker’s dozen of true sea adventures—tales filled with salt spray, blood-and-thunder, and man-overboard action all guaranteed to satisfy the hardiest armchair adventurer.      Researched from ships’ logs, manuscripts, newspaper accounts and historical records and penned by Richard Dillon a gifted storyteller and one of California’s finest historians. Here’s a sampling:

In the tradition of his award-winning biographies, Meriwether Lewis and Fool’s Gold, acclaimed historian Richard Dillon recreates the life of one of frontier America’s most gifted lawmen, James B. Hume.Dillon paints a vivid picture of Hume, the greatest of Wells, Fargo and company’s detectives, who ranged all over the West in search of robbers of the firm’s express shipments.Formerly a sheriff in California’s Mother Lode gold mining country, Hume did not o...

“We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” —Oliver Hazard Perry to General William Henry Harrison, September 10, 1813 Oliver Hazard Perry fought perhaps the most perfect single battle in American naval history. How Perry turned certain defeat in what has become known as the Battle of Lake Erie, into a monumental victory is one of the greatest naval achievements of all time. More—he insured the success of William Henry Harrison’s Northwest Territory campaign...

Sutter, the father of California, is one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of the West. With Fool’s Gold, famed California historian Richard Dillon (Wells, Fargo Detective, Embarcadero) brings to life the story of Swiss immigrant John A. Sutter. Via a circuitous route, John Sutter arrived in Yerba Buena—today’s San Francisco— on July 1, 1839. At the time, the territory had a population of only 1,000 Europeans, in contrast with 30,000 Native...

Sand in a Whirlwind is a dramatic account of the events surrounding hostilities between settlers and Pyramid Paiutes in the spring of 1860. Thirty years after its publication Ferol Egan’s now classic tale continues to enlighten and engage readers.

     The Hudson’s Bay Fur Company route to California was the fur trappers’ and traders’ road in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s from Fort Vancouver (now in Washington State) to San Francisco and beyond.      Does “road” mean a six-lane paved freeway to you? Turn the calendar back and ponder a path that was rough, stony, precipitous, ill-marked, and full of perils at every turn: disease, famine, attacking Indians and worse.   &n...

     In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the American Merchant Marine went into a terrible and tragic decline, and sailors were forced to serve under conditions that were little better than serfdom.      Seamen were exploited in wholesale fashion, disfranchised of almost all their civil and human rights, and brutally punished for even minor offenses. Successful skippers had turned into slave drivers, cracking down on the sailors, s...