Francis P. Farquhar (1887–1974)

Farquhar's History of the Sierra Nevada is a very well researched distillation of various primary documents concerning the discovery, exploration, and lore concerning the Sierra Nevada Mountains. From what little primary records exist and have been compiled, Farquhar is able to weed out unreliable accounts from those that merit the most attention. He takes great trouble to place undated, or anonymous sources within their context, drawing on secondary documents and hearsay to narrow down where the first hand information belongs.

There are many interesting stories gathered together here in one source: Accounts of the first non-natives to discover Yosemite, the Calaveras Big Trees, the survey of California by J.D. Whitney, among many. It also introduces such famous California historical figures as John Muir, and tells their stories.

I give History of the Sierra Nevada three and a half stars chiefly due to the disjointed nature of this history; Farquhar is forever skipping around, often leaving a paragraph with something like "...more about that in a later chapter." He does this over and over, to the point where it takes you out of the topic that you are currently reading on. I think a more accurate title would be "Collected Histories of the Sierra Nevada". While it may be a good thing in some regards that most of the chapters can stand 100% on their own, without knowledge of any prior or following chapters, it makes the overall reading too disjointed and difficult to stay engaged.… (altro)