Posts by Mike McPhate

Death Valley, the hottest and driest place in America, sits atop a sprawling system of underground water. In many places, it burbles toward the surface in support of oases and strange, watery cradles of life like Devils Hole, a deep limestone cavern just over the Nevada border that’s home to perhaps the world’s rarest fish. The…

The California Sun reached out to leading outdoor experts in each of nine California regions and asked the same question: If you had to name your absolute top 5 not-to-be-missed day outings, what would they be? Listed below are their picks, 45 in all, roughly north to south. Jump to: Far north | Northwest | Gold Country | Central Valley | Bay Area | Eastern Sierra | Central…

The 1848 discovery of gold in the California hills unleashed a burst of industry that transformed the American West. It also coincided with the rise of photography. Among the entrepreneurs who spilled into California to separate miners from their pay were photographers, who opened daguerreotype studios in most big cities. Virtually every prospector who could…

It was over the July Fourth weekend of 1947 that the outlaw image of the American biker was born. Throughout the 1930s, the sleepy town of Hollister not far from Monterey Bay had made a pastime of hosting motorcycle rallies. Paused during World War II, an Independence Day rally returned in 1947 with a pent-up…

Above is the original eight-striped rainbow flag, on display at the Oakland Museum of California. It was in June 1978 that the flag first flew in a gay pride parade in San Francisco. The gay rights leader Harvey Milk and others had asked Gilbert Baker, who was known for his creative talents, to create an…

In June 1965, Johnny Cash ignited a wildfire in the Los Padres National Forest that drove off 49 of the area’s 53 endangered California condors. In those days, the gravelly-voiced singer had fallen so deep into amphetamine use that the people around him feared for his life. Cash had driven his camper along with his…

In June of 1878, the photographer Eadweard Muybridge confirmed that horses fly through the air when they run. At the time, the question of whether horses become fully airborne had vexed humankind, having eyes too slow to fully process the animals’ rapid gait. Leland Stanford, the former California governor and an avid horseman, was convinced…

San Francisco, it is often said, isn’t what it used to be. A city that once welcomed everyone has become an enclave of the filthy rich where the masons, blacksmiths, and bohemians of yesteryear have long since vanished. Yet tucked along Mission Street in the city’s southeast is one neighborhood that seems to have largely…

The descendants of Hawaiian laborers in 19th-century Mexican California are now federally recognized as Miwok Indians and run a casino on a reservation near Placerville. The story begins in 1839, when the Swiss pioneer John Sutter recruited 10 Hawaiians to travel with him to California, where he established an agricultural colony near Sacramento. Over time,…

In May 1987, the Golden Gate Bridge was flattened. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the graceful span’s opening in 1937. A celebration included closing the lanes to vehicle traffic so people could take a leisurely stroll across. An expert estimated 80,000 would show up. The real number was 10 times that, with roughly…

On May 17, 1995, an out-of-work plumber walked into an unlocked National Guard armory, climbed inside a tank, pushed an ignition button, and rampaged through the streets of San Diego for 23 minutes. Shawn Nelson, a 35-year-old Army veteran, aimed for maximum destruction: he drove the M-60 Patton tank over dozens of vehicles, squashing them like…

Since 1972, government satellites have collected millions of images of the earth’s surface, providing crucial data for researchers and policymakers. But starting in 2001, the USGS began publishing photos for an explicitly nonscientific reason: they’re beautiful. The “Earth as Art” program showcases the land, sea, and sky in creative combinations of visible and infrared light that would…

She was a bootlegger, a fake check scammer, a brothel madam — and a Bay Area mayor. Sally Stanford, born in rural Oregon in May 1903, was among California’s more colorful figures. Smart, stylish, and outspoken, she ran one of the world’s best-known brothels in the 1940s, operating out of a mansion on San Francisco’s Nob Hill.…

The Southern California coast is putting on one of nature’s most dazzling nighttime shows right now. Known as bioluminescence, the phenomenon of glowing aqua-colored waves is caused by microscopic phytoplankton that emit light when agitated to scare off predators. The events are unpredictable, but occur every so often all along the Pacific coast, peaking usually…

Dotting a rugged slope in the Inyo Mountains are the remains of one of early California’s great engines of prosperity. During its 1870s heyday, Cerro Gordo, or “fat hill,” was a rollicking silver town of 4,800 people and 1,600 mules, ruled by the six-gun. It generated so much trade that the Los Angeles News editorialized…

“Let us have no more Chinatowns in our cities.”— Oakland Enquirer, April 1906 After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, fires lasted for days and laid waste to most of the burgeoning city, including all of Chinatown. Chinese laborers had arrived to California in large numbers as part of the 1848 Gold Rush and the western…

In April 1967, roughly 50,000 people packed into San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium in the largest protest march and rally the West Coast had ever seen. The Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, including a related protest in Manhattan’s Central Park, was notable for melding together disparate civil rights, labor, and counterculture movements…

On this day in 1906, the motion picture pioneer Harry Miles climbed aboard a San Francisco cable car and cranked a movie camera. The film by the Miles Brothers movie company captured a view of the thoroughfare — bustling with horse-drawn wagons, bicycles, and newfangled automobiles — as it would never be recorded again. That’s…