Historic Photos of Sonoma County
The climate was good, the soil was good, and the people who came to this fertile area on the Pacific Coast of America knew they had found a special place. Native American tribes came first, Europeans and their American descendants followed. With statehood and the Gold Rush, the population swelled.
The river led to Petaluma and brought pioneers who settled in the growing cities—Sebastopol, Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Healdsburg, Cloverdale, Windsor, and many smaller hamlets. Resilient pioneers rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake and took up the challenges of Prohibition, the Depression, and war. Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge opened the way for expansion.
Historic Photos of Sonoma County uses striking illustrations to follow life, government, education, and events in this special place. Rare scenes captured in historic, black-and-white photographs preserve the essence of Sonoma County life from the 1850s to the 1970s.
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Book details
- Text by
- Lee Torliatt
- Imprint
- Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Pages
- 202
- Formats
- Hardcover
- Series
- Historic Photos
- Subjects
- History › United States › State & Local › West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY)
Photography › Subjects & Themes - Topics
- California history · black-and-white photography · historic photographs · Pacific Coast · local history · Gold Rush era · pioneer life
- ISBN-13
- 9781683369899
About the author
LEE TORLIATT is a fifth-generation Petaluman and the author of Golden Memories of the Redwood Empire and Sports Memories of Sonoma County.
Torliatt attended San Francisco State and the University of California, Berkeley, then worked as an editor and writer at the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, Petaluma Argus-Courier, San Francisco Chronicle, and Pacific Stars and Stripes in Tokyo. He taught Social Science and English at Santa Rosa and Piner High Schools before retiring in 1993.
When he’s not writing, Torliatt serves on the board of the Sonoma County History Society as archivist and editor of the Sonoma County Historian quarterly magazine, and has volunteered with Catholic Worker, Friends Outside, and international exchange programs. This deep rootedness in local community shapes his focus on regional history.
Lee was born on Groundhog Day, 1933, and lives in the Petaluma area; he has a daughter and two grandsons in Santa Rosa.