Ferol egan biography

EGAN, Ferol. American, b. 1923. Genres: Novels, History, Biography. Career: Writer, three-time Commonwealth Medal winner for: The El Dorado Trial, Sand In a Whirlwind, and Fremont: Explorer for a Restless Nation; and Fremont Award for contributions to the history of the American Frontier West. Publications: The El Dorado Trail: The Story of the Gold Rush Routes Across Mexico, 1970; Sand in a Whirlwind: The Paiute Indian War of 1860, 1972; Fremont: Explorer for a Restless Nation, 1977; The Taste of Time, 1977; Last Bonanza Kings: The Bourns of San Francisco, 1998. EDITOR: Incidents of Travel in New Mexico, 1969; A Sailor's Sketch of the Sacramento Valley in 1842, 1971; California, Land of Gold, or, Stay At Home and Work Hard, 1971; A Dangerous Journey, 1972; Overland Journey to Carson Valley and California, 1973; Across the Rockies with Fremont, 1975. Address: 1199 Grizzly Peak Blvd, Berkeley, CA 94708, U.S.A.

While the great mining bonanzas of the nineteenth-century West made eastern California and Nevada the subject of legend, much of the wealth from the mines flowed to San Francisco and made possible the growth of the city and some fabulous personal fortunes. Among the wealthiest and most powerful of the Bonanza Kings was William Bowers Bourn I and his son and successor, William Bowers Bourn II. The elder Bourn, descendant of an early New England family, arrived in San Francisco shortly after the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills. Although he eventually invested heavily in mines in Grass Valley and on the Comstock, his initial success was as a businessman in the booming port city. The younger Bourn built upon his fathers success, expanding the Empire Mine in Grass Valley into one of the largest, most productive, and most technologically advanced hard-rock gold mines in the West, acquiring additional mining properties on the Comstock and on Treasure Hill in eastern Nevada, and developing a range of business ventures, including a vast water system that was t

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