The Last Great Walk: The True Story of a 1909 Walk from New York to San Francisco, and Why it MattersToday

In 1909, Edward Payson Weston walked from New York to San Francisco, covering around 40 miles a day and greeted by wildly cheering audiences in every city. The New York Times called it the "first bona-fide walk ... across the American continent," and eagerly chronicled a journey in which Weston was beset by fatigue, mosquitos, vicious headwinds, and brutal heat. He was 70 years old.

In The Last Great Walk, journalist Wayne Curtis uses the framework of Weston's fascinating and surprising stor...