Posts by Mike McPhate

Ray Kroc turned a hamburger stand in the California desert into a fast-food empire that changed the way Americans eat. Less is known about his wife, a dashing piano player named Joan whose life was arguably every bit as cinematic. Joan Kroc took control of her husband’s $3 billion McDonald’s fortune after his death in…

Perched along a river bank in the California Delta is the only surviving town in the U.S. to have been built by and for Chinese. The tiny community of Locke traces its origins to this week in 1915 when the Chinatown in nearby Walnut Grove was destroyed in an accidental fire. That prompted a group…

The Ron Swanson character in “Parks and Recreation” was inspired in part by a libertarian working in government in Burbank. To research the oddball world of government portrayed on the NBC sitcom, the creators interviewed actual government officials. They had the idea to create a boss for Leslie Knope — an upbeat, crusading bureaucrat —…

A stagecoach robber of the Old West sometimes left poems behind after his holdups. One read: “I’ve labored long and hard for bread,For honor, and for riches,But on my corns too long you’ve tread,You fine-haired sons of bitches.”It was signed, “Black Bart, the Po8.” His real name was Charles Earl Boles, and he was one…

The California Sun is a daily newsletter that hand-curates the most compelling stories about California from dozens of publications across the internet. Here are 10 of the most popular stories in the newsletter from the past week: 1 “It’s a place always balancing between heaven and hell.” In Slab City, the Mojave Desert outpost of…

Many Californians are unaware that at least 160 cities across the state have official flags. That could be because most appear to have been the product of bureaucratic afterthought — epitomized by a style known derisively as a “seal on a bedsheet.” The scourge of ugly municipal flags drew wide attention a few years ago…

There are highway signs in both Sacramento and Ocean City, Md., indicating that the cities are 3,073 miles apart. U.S. Route 50 leaves Sacramento and spans the country’s midriff — passing small town America along stretches of desert, farmland, high plains, and mountains — before reaching the resort town of Ocean City on the Atlantic.…

Just north of Bakersfield is the only town in California to have been founded and governed solely by African-Americans. Established in 1908, Allensworth was spearheaded by a former slave and Army veteran, Col. Allen Allensworth, who envisioned a promised land where blacks could live free of discrimination and “create sentiment favorable to intellectual and industrial…

A couple months ago, a group of horsemen rode along a dusty San Joaquin Valley highway during an annual commemoration of Joaquin Murrieta, one of California’s most enduring folk heroes. Little is truly known about the Mexican miner who traveled to Gold Rush California in search of fortune and ended up an outlaw. According to…

It’s been nearly a year since we started this experiment called the California Sun. Now we’re about to find out whether we can make it sustainable. Creating the newsletter has been a pleasure. We’ve been thrilled to hear from readers who appreciate, as one put it, our “obsessively curious, artfully curated homage to this peculiarly…

1The entire village of Ferndale is designated as a state historical landmark. The northern gateway to the Lost Coast — bordered by the King Range, the Eel River, and the Pacific Ocean — has dozens of colorful Victorian storefronts and homes that have stood since the late 1800s. The town has no chain stores, traffic,…

New England has the architecture, but California has the landscapes. That, according to the fall color connoisseur John Poimiroo, makes the Golden State America’s premier autumn destination. As evidence, he cited a photograph of the Eastern Sierra’s Bishop Creek Canyon aflame with color in a past September, shown above. “I’ll take any photograph you can…

1In the 1970s and early ’80s, motorists drove among freely roaming lions in Irvine. Lion Country Safari was the brainchild of a South African developer who aimed to simulate a wild animal safari for tourists in Orange County. Past a sign that read “No Trespassing. Violators Will Be Eaten,” visitors paid $3.25 to drive along…

The last governor of Mexican California grew up as a Spaniard, became a Mexican, and died an American — without ever leaving the state. The life of Pio Pico, stretching from 1801 to 1894, in many ways embodied 19th-century California. He was born poor, then amassed one of California’s greatest fortunes. He was a Mexican…

1San Francisco’s Chinese diaspora began in the 1800s as thousands of immigrants sought work in the railroads and mines. A distinct community emerged known as Chinatown that became a major force in shaping the city’s cultural and political character. Today, it’s the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese enclave outside Asia. A…

Indigenous groups were once spread like a galaxy of stars across the Western wilderness, speaking more than 100 languages and flourishing independently for thousands of years. Their collapse was swift. California’s tribal population fell from perhaps more than 300,000 to as little as 25,000 by the end of the 19th century, a result of disease,…

All at once in the mid-19th century, the Mexican-American war ended and the Gold Rush began. California swelled with a sense of both optimism and foreboding. Young men from all over the world were pouring into the western lands ceded by Mexico. Even soldiers deserted their posts to try their luck in the gold fields.…

Off a country road in Woodside, amid the new wealth of Silicon Valley, is one of the finest remaining country estates of the early 20th century. Filoli Gardens was built by William Bowers Bourn II, heir to a Gold Rush fortune, and his wife Agnes as a lavish refuge 30 miles south of San Francisco. The…