History of Nevada County, California, with Illustrations Descriptive of Its Scenery, is the most important late 19th-century gazetteer-cum-who's who publication focusing on Grass Valley and Nevada City. It's 234 pages are worth perusing if only to be drawn back in time through the numerous, stunning, full-page sketches -- some spanning two pages -- printed on only one side of their unpaginated leaves.
    Though his name is not on the title page, the book is attributed to Harry L. Wells (1854-1940), the author of its main feature -- "History of Nevada County, California". The first 15 of its 59 chapters preface the birth of Nevada County. Back matter includes a 3-page chronology spanning from 1519 (Cortez) to 5 June 1880 (Nevada City fire), and a 1-page digest of mostly numerical facts related to geography, economics, and industry. The last 24 pages are stuffed with "Biographical Sketches" of people probably well represented by those who subsidized the publication in order to be included.
    Neither the original edition, published in 1880 by Thompson & West in Oakland -- nor the facsimile edition, published by Howell-North in Berkeley in 1970 -- has an index. David A. and Ardis Hatten Comstock compiled one, and published it in 1979. A second edition of the index was published in 1992. See Index to 1880 History of Nevada County, California, Thompson & West (Grass Valley: Comstock Bonanza Press).

Catalog #: 979.437 THO
Author: Harry Wells
Publisher: Oakland (CA): Thompson & West (original), Berkeley (CA): Howell-North (facsimile)
Published: 1880
Subjects: Nevada County, History, Gazetteer, Who's-who, Architecture, Sketches
Related Items:

• Index to 1880 History of Nevada County, California (979.437 HIS INDEX)(1992 2nd edition)

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