Paradise, California (Images of America Series)

by Robert Colby

Overview

It was more than 150 years ago that Uncle Billy" Leonard took refuge from the hellish heat in the shade beneath a Ponderosa pine, breathing in relief to his companions: "Boys, this has got to be Paradise!" Or so the story goes. Yet it is no fiction that the settlement grew to be more than just a stop on the way from Oroville or Chico to the gold country. Although Paradise was surrounded by mines, it had little gold itself. Disappointed miners made a living cutting timber, working at one of the sawmills, or hacking out homesteads in the foothill forests. Diamond Match Company built a railroad to its sawmill, locating the depot a mile west of town in what was sometimes called "New Paradise." For generations before houses began to replace its orchards, Paradise was an apple-growing center, home to harvest festivals that are echoed in today's annual Johnny Appleseed Days."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738546759
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	11/15/2006
Series:	Images of America Series
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.31(d)

About the Author

Author Robert Colby, who recently coauthored the Images of America volume Magalia to Stirling City, is a longtime editor of the historical journal Tales of the Paradise Ridge. His insights illuminate this path through the history of a town where a welcome sign reads, You Are Ascending into Paradise.