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California history, much like that of America’s, rests on the noblest of deeds, the most nefarious of acts and a sea of grey in between, all driven by the very dreams that fuel boom and bust cycles.
Yosemite National Park has become for me — as it has for many Southern Californians — an annual destination.
For decades, visitors to Yosemite witnessed the Firefall, a shimmering curtain of glowing embers and hot coals cascading to the valley floor. The tradition highlights the competition that existed between the state’s earliest entrepreneurs.
The optimistic essence of the California's golden dream endures — as it should — but the future of the state depends on Californians dreaming differently.
By José R. FloresLos Angeles, considered a “city of the future,” continues to expand and reinvent itself by adding to its iconic downtown skyline. If your…
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Some California dreams did succeed, creating a megalopolis in the state’s north and south. Other dreams failed, leaving only ruins behind. This episode explores the hopes and dreams of three California ghost towns. We feature Bodie, an early gold mining settlement in Mono County that continues to be preserved in time; Llano Del Rio, a socialist utopian community in the Mojave Desert; and Zzyzx, a former health spa community that came to an end with the eviction of founder and radio evangelist Curtis Howe Springer.
Most of the L.A. River’s 51 miles flows through a concrete flood control channel that was built in the 1940s and 1950s, but in this section, next to the Bowtie and Frogtown, the river is very much alive despite the surrounding infrastructure.
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This episode explores how surfers, bodybuilders, and acrobats taught Californians how to have fun and stay young at the beach — and how the 1966 documentary The Endless Summer shared the Southern California idea of the beach with the rest of the world.
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California’s deserts have sparked imaginations around the world. This episode explores the creation of the Salton Sea; the effort to preserve Joshua Tree National Park; and how commercial interests created desert utopias like Palm Springs.
See some of the structures of Ojai's past and compare with present-day images.