For the first two centuries of Santa Fe's history, weary wayfarers were out of luck. Not only did the Spanish authorities enforce a strict travel ban on foreign visitors, but there was also no place to stay in the territorial capital. That all changed in the 1820s. When Mexico gained independence, a flood of traffic cascaded down the Santa Fe Trail, and the Plaza became a hub of hospitality and trade. From the Exchange Hotel to La Fonda, the inn on the corner of San Francisco Street repres...

This book is a history of the Casad family that traces its movement from Ohio to New Mexico by way of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and California. The principal family members are Thomas Casad and his second wife, Sarah Van Winkle Casad, along with their numerous children. The book relates one family’s experience with agriculture, coal mining, and milling on the Illinois prairie, where Thomas founded the town of Summerfield in St. Clair County, and its migration west as far as Kansas. There...

“Spanning forty years and more than three hundred victories, the contributions of countless people have built Hendrick Motorsports into the greatest team in NASCAR history. This book is made up of their stories.” —Four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon, from the forewordCelebrate the NASCAR-champion team’s 40th anniversary with this officially licensed history featuring stunning photography, including rare images from the Hendrick Motorsports archive.

Over five centuries of foreign rule—by Spain, Mexico, and the United States—Native American pueblos have confronted attacks on their sovereignty and encroachments on their land and water rights. How five New Mexico and Texas pueblos did this, in some cases multiple times, forms the history of cultural resilience and tenacity chronicled in Pueblo Sovereignty by two of New Mexico’s most distinguished legal historians, Malcolm Ebright and Rick Hendricks.Extending the...

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War—the epic story of the California Gold Rush, “a fine, robust telling of one of the greatest adventure stories in history" (David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of John Adams).The California Gold Rush inspired a new American dream—the “dream of instant wealth, won by audacity and good luck.” The discovery of gold on the American River in 18...

The first "accidental president," whose secret maneuverings brought Texas into the Union and set secession in motion.When William Henry Harrison died in April 1841, just one month after his inauguration, Vice President John Tyler assumed the presidency. It was a controversial move by this Southern gentleman, who had been placed on the fractious Whig ticket with the hero of Tippecanoe in order to sweep Andrew Jackson's Democrats, and their imperial tendencies, out o...

Praise for KINGS OF TEXAS"Kings of Texas is a fresh and very welcome history of the great King Ranch. It's concise but thorough, crisply written, meticulous, and very readable. It should find a wide audience."-Larry McMurtry, author of Sin Killer and the Pulitzer Prize--winning Lonesome Dove"This book is about the King Ranch, but it is about much more than that. A compelling chronicle of war, peace, love, betrayal, birth, and death in the region where the Texas-Mexic...

This edition in the Historical Cities series explores landmarks and sites within the city of San Francisco. Over 50 sites are divided into the east and west side of the northern end of the Peninsula. Maps and GPS coordinates are included.

**Winner of the Ray Allen Billington Prize and the Phillis Wheatley Book Award"An American 'Odyssey,' the larger-than-life story of a man who travels far in the wake of war and gets by on his adaptability and gift for gab." —Wall Street Journal**A black child born on the US-Mexico border in the twilight of slavery, William Ellis inhabited a world divided along ambiguous racial lines. Adopting the name Guillermo Eliseo, he passed as Mexican, transcending racial line...

"[A] fascinating account of the twisted threads of murder, ethnic violence and mob justice in 19th century Southern California." —Jill Leovy, author of Ghettoside: A History of Murder in America, in the Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles is a city founded on blood. Once a small Mexican pueblo teeming with Californios, Indians, and Americans, all armed with Bowie knives and Colt revolvers, it was among the most murderous locales in the Californian fronti...

This second volume in Kevin Starr's passionate and ambitious cultural history of the Golden State focuses on the turn-of-the-century years and the emergence of Southern California as a regional culture in its own right. "How hauntingly beautiful, how replete with lost possibilities, seems that Southern California of two and three generations ago, now that a dramatically diferent society has emerged in its place," writes Starr. As he recreates the "lost California," Starr examines the rich ...

John Wesley Hardin is the most famous gunfighter of the American Wild West. The subject of conversations from the Mexican border to the rowdy saloons of Kansas, he was the greatest celebrity of the age. He wrote an autobiography, but he only told what he wanted known, and few have researched beyond that. Today, Hardin is an enigma. Part of the mystery is his disastrous relationship with Helen Beulah Mrose, yet she has not been researched at all. Until now. Helen Beulah's story is the final...