Dear Carrie: Letters from the Eastern Sierra 1878-1899

Letters discovered in an old trunk introduce the modern traveler to the towns of the Owens Valley in California, back when pioneers, cowboys, and women referred to as asoiled dovesa still walked their streets and gold mines flourished in the Eastern Sierra: Cerro Gordo, Mammoth, Lundy, Aurora and Bodie. Emilyas letters describe her adventures, her friendships with women who traveled to the Far West over the Oregon Trail only twenty years earlier, and her years living in the wild mining town of Bodie. For two decades, she describes to her friend Carrie the people, places, and natural beauty of the Eastern Sierra and the Owens Valley before it became todayas recreational paradise and before the California Aqueduct cut through the length of the Valley carrying Sierra snow melt to Los Angeles.