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There’s a retreat in the woods of Northern California where members of America’s ruling class gather each summer to listen to lectures, party boisterously, and burn an effigy in front of a 30-foot tall owl statue. Founded in San Francisco in 1872, the Bohemian Club began as an intellectual haven for creative types. Over time,…

Before white settlers stampeded into California in a quest for gold, an earlier wave of colonizers arrived in the name of God. Beginning in the 18th century, Spanish priests established a series of religious outposts in California in an effort to convert the indigenous population. The first — Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala —…

In 1851 Josefa Segovia was lynched — the only hanging of a woman in California history. The story began with July Fourth celebrations in the northern Sierra mining town of Downieville. After a day of hard drinking, things got rowdy. At some point, a Scotsman named Fred Cannon and his companions were out carousing when…

The federal penitentiary at Alcatraz Island, about a mile off San Francisco’s shore, was meant to be escape-proof. But that didn’t stop inmates from trying. In 1962, three prisoners staged what became one of the most notorious unsolved crimes in American history. John Anglin, his brother Clarence Anglin, and Frank Morris, all bank robbers, spent months…

In June of 1956, Santa Cruz had a real-life “Footloose” moment. Police officers had been dispatched to check in on a Saturday night dance at the city’s civic auditorium. They were disturbed by what they saw. According to a police report, about 200 teenagers gyrated to the sounds of a rock-and-roll band, with some couples…

In the 1940s, Los Angeles was a city of transplants: Mexicans fleeing war, black Southerners seeking opportunity, white farmers escaping the Dust Bowl. World War II was raging, stoking fears of a Japanese attack on the West Coast, and racial tensions were high. Young Mexican-Americans embraced the pachuco style — known for its zoot suit…

Long before the natural wonder known as Yosemite’s firefall became the Coachella of nature photography, there was a manmade version of the spectacle that delighted generations of visitors to the park. While unthinkable today, people used to push gleaming embers off the edge of Glacier Point as nighttime entertainment for campers in the valley 3,200…

In May of 1903, Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir went on a camping trip in Yosemite that changed the nation. The adventurous president had read Muir’s writings and expressed interest in seeing the naturalist’s beloved Yosemite. “I do not want anyone with me but you,” the president wrote in a letter, “and I want to…

In 1856, San Francisco witnessed an assassination as treacherous and cowardly as there ever was in the city. In the days of the Gold Rush, vice and violence ruled the day, and the crusading newspaperman James King made a career of exposing the city’s many scoundrels in the pages of the Evening Bulletin. “He flayed…

Addressing the California State Medical Society in 1875, Dr. Alfred E. Regensburger suggested a way to deal with the growing number of women interested in medical careers. “If we ignore them and downplay their efforts,” he said, “they will be forced to abandon the idea of being a part of medicine.” Born in May of…

“L.A.’s most successful export is not Hollywood but Pentecostalism,” the Economist once wrote. In April 1906, an itinerant black preacher, William Seymour, kicked off what became known as the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. Historians now regard the religious revival as the primary catalyst for the spread of Pentecostalism in the 20th century. Seymour was…

In April 1974 a freelance copywriter named Gary Dahl struck upon an improbable multimillion-dollar idea. Over beers at a Los Gatos bar, Dahl’s buddies were lamenting the hassles of pets: the feeding, the walking, the cleaning up. “I own a pet rock,” Dahl said in jest. It turned into a running joke, then a serious…

Decay festers all around at the Salton Sea, the vast inland lake in Southern California that once hosted beauty pageants and boat races in its tourist heyday. Pollution, drought, and blistering heat conspired to end the fun, killing off fish en masse and leaving communities abandoned along the shore. But new life is moving into…

Every so often, the clouds seem to turn black and dance above the fields of California. They are thousands of European starlings performing one of nature’s most extraordinary — and mysterious — shows. When they assemble in the sky, the birds form synchronized blobs known as murmurations that twirl and throb and swoop. The most…

The California Sun uses a model of voluntary support. That means we rely on you, dear reader, to chip in a small amount to help cover the cost of producing the newsletter. Here are nine reasons to inspire you: 1The Sun reveals California’s treasures. A subterranean wonderland in the San Joaquin Valley, a pink dream…

Updated: March 15, 2022The bloom is on at the Flower Fields in Carlsbad. For about 10 weeks each year, the working farm lets the public wander its carefully manicured rows of white, red, yellow, purple, pink, and orange blossoms perched on 50 gently sloping acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The flowers are ranunculuses, a member…

In 1852, three black men — Carter Perkins, Robert Perkins, and Sandy Jones — were asleep in a cabin when a group of armed whites broke in, loaded the men into a wagon, and hauled them before a justice of the peace. The captives were declared fugitive slaves and ordered back to their former masters. This…

Born in a small Mexican village, Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa hopped the border into California in 1987 the day before his 19th birthday — with no English and $65 in his pocket. Today, he is a celebrated brain surgeon, cancer researcher, and author. Quiñones-Hinojosa’s California journey began in the fields around Fresno, where he picked tomatoes and cotton…