Days Gone By
in Contra Costa County, Volume 1
by Nilda Rego

From the sterling citizen to the foul murderer, from the sublime to the mundane, from the country school teacher to the bare-knuckle fighter, here are the eventful episodes of life on the “Other Coast.”

So often we think of history in terms of cataclysmic events: wars, disasters, and pandemics. We learn dates, and the names of generals and presidents. This book is not that kind of history. Very few of the people in these stories would have made it onto the evening news. These are tales of ordinary people, often doing and experiencing extraordinary things, but mostly just trying to survive from day to day.

Trade paperback,
223 pages, 6 x 9,
53 illustrations, index.
ISBN: 1-889652-01-6
$15.95

• Train wreck
• Balloon disaster
• Social conflict
• The fire dancer
• The Giant Powder Company
• Concord and Black Bart
• Moraga's Wild West
• The Day the Banks Closed
• Education? Who Needs It?

Days Gone By
in Contra Costa County, Volume 2
by Nilda Rego

More than a century of the dramatic and the ordinary but profound events of daily life and the headline shockers that affected the lives of those who have gone before.

The fifty-two stories contained in this impressive volume recount events in the dynamic history of Contra Costa County, one of the original twenty-seven counties created when California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850. These accounts describe some of the diverse events and people that helped transform Contra Costa into one of the most influential counties in the state.

Trade paperback
224 pages, 6 x 9
61 illustrations, index.
ISBN: 1-889652-02-4  
$15.95

• The Spanish - American War
• The Lafayette dam cracks up
• Byron Hot Springs
• Early Black Settlers
• Port Costa Wheat—and Beer
• Railroad Politics
• Women's Suffrage
• Going Dry with the WCTU
• The Fleagle Gang