Paradise, California (Images of America Series)

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...