Images of America

Name: California State Fair
Brand: Carson Hendricks
SKU: 9780738580890
Price: 17.49 USD
Availability: InStock

Discover the history of your hometown with Arcadia Publishing's best-selling Images of America History Book series, crafted by local authors. Visit landmarks like the Yellowstone National Park, the Biltmore Estate, or Alcatraz Island without ever leaving your backyard. Hike to the rural Angwin village on Howell Mountain, time-travel to Chicago’s 1893 World Fair, or experience sports history at Fenway Park. Through iconic images of America, these local history books open a window into yesterday for eager history lovers. [View all Images of America books]

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California State Fair

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Point Cabrillo Light Station

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

California Lighthouse Life in the 1920s and 1930s

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Lighthouses of the Bay Area

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Lighthouses of the Ventura Coast

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Lighthouses of San Diego

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

St. George Reef Lighthouse

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Point Arena Lighthouse

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Point Piedras Blancas

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Alameda County Fair

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Indio's Date Festival

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Escondido Grape Day Festivals

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

California State Fair

9780738580890

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Starting in San Francisco in 1854, the California State Fair and Exposition began as a vehicle to showcase, encourage, and expand California's agricultural industry. It quickly became an attraction for thousands of residents, both local and from across the state. By 1884, it occupied the largest exhibit hall in the United States. Within 100 years, it became the largest fair in the country by adding horse racing, elaborate exhibits from every county in the state and from around the world, thrill rides, top-flight entertainment, and, of course, the best food. The original goal of the fair was met some 50 years ago, as California remains the nation's top producer of agricultural products.

Point Cabrillo Light Station

9780738559506

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Point Cabrillo Lighthouse, on the rugged coast of Mendocino County in Northern California, was first lit as an aid to navigation on June 10, 1909. The light station continues to serve mariners and is regarded as one of the crown jewels of lighthouses on the West Coast. In July 1850, just north of the future site of the lighthouse, the clipper brig Frolic wrecked in its journey from China to Gold Rush-era San Francisco. European settlers in search of salvage from the cargo found instead Mendocino's vast strands of virgin redwood timber stretching inland from the coast. Getting this valuable lumber to market in the mid-19th century required ships, and ships needed lighthouses to guide them. In 1909, the light known today as Point Cabrillo was built on a windswept promontory two miles north of the village of Mendocino.

California Lighthouse Life in the 1920s and 1930s

9780738508832

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Like giant sentinels standing guard, California's lighthouses keep silent vigils over the turbulent waters of the Pacific. In 1850, Congress appropriated funds to build eight lighthouses on the West Coast, and three years later, construction began on the project. The first lighthouse to become operational on the West Coast was that on Alcatraz Island on June 1, 1854. While the other seven were being completed, Congress authorized funds to construct a second set of eight lighthouses, and by 1930, California boasted 40 light stations. This new photographic history contains over 200 rare and beautiful images featuring lighthouses of the South Coast, San Francisco Bay, and the North Coast, as well as lightships and support facilities.

Lighthouses of the Bay Area

9780738559438

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

The 1848 discovery of gold in the hills of California brought prospectors and adventurers west; many came across the country on the treacherous western trails, while others came by sea. The rugged coast of California and the dangers of the San Francisco Bay waters claimed many ships and their passengers. The loss of these ships and the ever-increasing number of vessels converging in the San Francisco Bay made it evident that navigational aids were desperately needed. To enhance maritime safety in the region, the San Francisco Bay's first light, located on Alcatraz Island, began construction in 1852. Light stations soon followed at Fort Point, Point Bonita, and the Farallon Islands. An additional 15 lights later served the bay, and two lightships were stationed outside the Golden Gate.

Lighthouses of the Ventura Coast

9780738581866

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

The Ventura County coast has been illuminated for more than a century by three distinctive lighthouses, united in their mission of warning mariners of coastal hazards and guiding ships to safe passage. Port Hueneme's original 1874 Victorian Stick Style lighthouse stood sentry until it was replaced in 1940 by the still-standing art moderne structure, which guards the only deepwater port on the California coast between San Francisco and San Pedro. The Anacapa Island Light, a cylindrical brick structure in the Channel Islands lit in 1932, was the last new lighthouse on the West Coast. Ventura, originally dubbed San Buenaventura by Fr. Junipero Serra in 1782, extends its "good fortune" to the steamers, warships, tankers, and other craft guided to safety by these navigation beacons.

Lighthouses of San Diego

9780738558417

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

As his ship rounded the high point off Point Loma, San Diego, in 1859, Richard Henry Dana wrote, "We were greeted by the cheering presence of a light-house." In reality, beams from San Diego's first lighthouse were repeatedly lost in cloud and fog, and all too soon came agitation for a more effective light at a lower elevation. By 1891, two new lighthouses were constructed to achieve what one could not--a major light on the low tip of Point Loma and a secondary light at Ballast Point. Although abandonment of the first lighthouse structure was nearly catastrophic, it still survives today to charm millions of visitors. Now, and long overdue, are new glimpses of the famous and lesser-known lighthouses of San Diego thanks to the memories and photographs belonging to families of the men who kept the lights burning.

St. George Reef Lighthouse

9781467133173

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Situated at the end of a reef six miles offshore of Crescent City, California, stands St. George Reef Lighthouse. Constructed after the wreck of the coastal steamer Brother Jonathan in 1865, the beacon warned mariners of the dreaded "Dragon Rocks" of St. George Reef for nearly a century. This book chronicles the loss of the Jonathan, decades of efforts to make the light a reality, the 10-year construction period, manning of the station by keepers of the US Lighthouse Service and Coast Guard, and the struggles and accomplishments of dedicated volunteers to restore what many lighthouse historians refer to as "America's greatest lighthouse."

Point Arena Lighthouse

9780738599663

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

The low rumbles of the fog signal and flashing beam of light from the powerful lens have guided mariners away from the perilous waters surrounding Point Arena Lighthouse since 1870. After the great earthquake in 1906 and the rebuilding of the tower in 1908, Point Arena's navigational aids continued to warn ships away from the peninsula off Northern California's Pacific coastline. The original tower was replaced with a concrete cylindrical tower that rises 115 feet from the headland. This became the first lighthouse tower in the United States constructed with materials found to be superior to the stone and masonry lighthouse structures of the past. The new tower, crowned with a nearly 13,000-pound first-order Fresnel lens, sent a beam of light 20 miles out to sea and continued alerting ships of the dangers just offshore.

Point Piedras Blancas

9780738558196

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

For thousands of years, Point Piedras Blancas, located along the central coast of California, has attracted people to its rocky, windswept shores. In ancient times, it was used by Native American cultures. Since 1875, it has been the site of a First Order Lighthouse, warning ships to steer clear of its rocky shoals, a duty it continues to fulfill. Although the years have not been kind to this stunning area nor to the lighthouse, new life is being breathed into it by a partnership of enthusiastic community volunteers and government agencies. Their common goal is to restore this magnificent site to its original state while reintroducing the natural environment that was almost obliterated during the past four decades.

Alameda County Fair

9780738581934

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

What began as a ranching family's Sunday pastime of horse racing, with cheering crowds and thundering hooves on dusty roads, would give way to the Alameda County Fair that we know today. The Bernal family built the original racetrack in 1859 on their 52,000-acre ranch, which was part of the Northern California land grant, Rancho Valle de San Jose. Looking to turn his newly acquired racetrack into profit, businessman Rodney G. MacKenzie approached a group of county businessmen and ranchers with a proposal to hold a county fair on his property. The first Alameda County Fair ran from October 23 to October 27, 1912. Local leaders sought to form a modern fair, and in 1939 the Alameda County Fair Association was established. Once considered a racing fair, the Alameda County Fair now boasts livestock and agriculture. For young and old alike, the thrilling carnival rides, beautiful quilt exhibits, baking contests, fast-paced horse racing, or just a corn dog and cotton candy provide something for everyone, as the Alameda County Fair now prepares to celebrate its 100th year.

Indio's Date Festival

9781467134255

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Since the turn of the 20th century, Southern California's Coachella Valley has embraced a unique crop: the date. As success with the fruit grew, so too did regional celebrations of it. Beginning in 1921, the City of Indio hosted a Festival of Dates, an event that became the annual National Date Festival in 1947. The area linked itself to the date's birthplace, the Greater Middle East, in multiple ways, but the festival drew national attention to Indio's use of these Arabian fantasies. Attendees celebrated the fair's camel races, Arabian Nights musical pageant, Middle Eastern architecture, Queen Scheherazade pageant, and the costumes worn by boosters and visitors alike. While the United States' political and pop-cultural relationship to the region changed over time, the Eastern Coachella Valley continued to embrace fantasies of the Middle East at its fair.

Escondido Grape Day Festivals

9780738559490

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Escondido is the lilting Spanish name meaning "hidden" and was given to an irregular-shaped inland Southern California valley where an investment group planted 100 acres of grapes in the early 1880s. The dry-farmed grapes grew unusually large and sweet, which prompted business leaders to envision an attraction similar to Pasadena's Tournament of Roses. The first Grape Day Festival in 1908 commemorated an auspicious occasion in Escondido's water history and celebrated the grape as a symbol of the agricultural abundance of the region. The event attracted thousands of guests who could view the valley, farm displays, a grand parade, and entertainment while eating their fill of free grapes. But by mid-century, Grape Day disappeared along with the grape in Escondido. With the memory of the grape remaining clear, the Escondido Historical Society began the revival of the celebration in the 1970s. The centennial Grape Day Festival took place September 6, 2008.