https://www.beforetheblueprint.org/ Histories of cities, buildings and events.en https://www.beforetheblueprint.org/books/fort-bragg-skunk-train.html https://www.beforetheblueprint.org/books/fort-bragg-skunk-train.htmlFort Bragg grew from an 1857 army post on the Mendocino Indian Reservation into the largest town on the coast between San Francisco and Eureka: a redwood company town built around one mill, one harbor and one railroad. This history tells its story in order, from the Northern Pomo and Coast Yuki villages and the 1850 shipwreck that revealed the redwoods, through the founding of the lumber town in 1885, the earthquake and fire of 1906 and the Union Lumber Company years, to Noyo Harbor, Glass Beach and the long change from mill town to tourist town. A second, complete history follows the California Western Railroad, better known as the Skunk Train, from its 1885 logging line through the Redwood Route, steam and diesel, bankruptcy and rescue, the collapse of Tunnel No. 1 and the legal battles of 2019–2026. Chapters on the town's disasters, tragedies and notable crimes are told plainly and with respect, using only what newspapers, courts and historians have published. Charts trace Fort Bragg's population, people and weather, and a gallery of 394 photographs follows the town and the railroad decade by decade, from the 1850s to the 2020s. https://www.beforetheblueprint.org/books/cooper-arms-long-beach.html https://www.beforetheblueprint.org/books/cooper-arms-long-beach.htmlIn March 1924 a twelve-story Italian Renaissance Revival tower was completed at the corner of Ocean Boulevard and Linden Avenue. It was Long Beach's first residential high-rise and, at $1,350,000, the most expensive development the city had yet seen. This history follows the Cooper Arms from the townsite lots before 1922 through its planning, financing and construction, the 1933 earthquake it rode out, its designation as a Long Beach Historic Landmark in 1979 and its listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000, to its centennial in 2024. It is also a history of the people who lived and worked there. Drawing on archival newspapers, city directories, the National Register nomination and Los Angeles Times press negatives, it documents six sudden or violent deaths at the building between 1934 and 2005, including the 1935 shooting of Gladys Glena Fair in her own apartment, along with the shops and businesses on its ground floor. More than eighty pages of archival photographs follow the building decade by decade, from the 1920s to the 2020s, and every finding is sourced. https://www.beforetheblueprint.org/books/lafayette-long-beach.html https://www.beforetheblueprint.org/books/lafayette-long-beach.htmlThe Lafayette is not one building but three: the Spanish Baroque Campbell Apartments of 1928, the Art Deco Lafayette Hotel of 1929 and an International-style addition of 1948. Together they were run as one hotel for fifteen years and have been a condominium for more than fifty. This report traces the complex from its founding through the Hilton years and the 1955–59 expansion, which brought the award-winning Lanai wing by Killingsworth, Brady & Smith and a Grand Ballroom billed as the largest hotel ballroom west of Chicago. Here is the Lafayette's public life: Miss Universe contestants lodged there every July from 1952 to 1959, Richard Nixon addressed a dinner in its rooms, Governor Ronald Reagan lunched in its ballroom and a nationally televised boxing match was fought there. Then come its closure, the condominium conversion, the Fender's Ballroom years and its designation as a Long Beach Historic Landmark in 1986. Every claim is tagged as Documented, Reported, Conflict or Unverified, and a chapter sets out exactly where the sources disagree. The report includes the press record of 1941–1962, an event record of 1949–1977, more than fifty pages of newspaper clippings and the building's photographs.