Local author celebrates notable residents using spectacular, vintage images
Meet Leroy Radanovich Author of Legendary Locals of Yosemite National Park and Mariposa County
Leroy Radanovich will be at the Mariposa Museum & History Center on Saturday, April 25th, 2015 for a book signing for Legendary Locals of Yosemite National Park and Mariposa County, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
A new local history book reveals the intriguing characters and everyday citizens who have made Mariposa County’s history legendary. Legendary Locals of Yosemite National Park and Mariposa County shares the stories of unique individuals and groups, past and present, who have had a lasting impact on the community throughout its history.
In 1846, Thomas Larkin, American council general to the Mexican government in California, purchased a Mexican land grant, Las Mariposas, for Col. John C. Fremont. The grant consisted of 10 square leagues of grazing land located near the Merced River and west of the Sierra. In 1848, when California became the possession of the United States, the treaty called for the recognition of preexisting grants. Gold was discovered in the foothills of the Sierra that same year. Fremont floated his questionable Mexican grant into the gold discovery region. With the formation of the State of California in 1850, one of the original counties was named Mariposa, Spanish for “butterflies.” Located within the county was the Fremont grant and much of the yet undiscovered Yosemite region of the Sierra. Encounters with Native Americans near the mining camps lead to the formation of the Mariposa Battalion, and a search for the natives led to the American discovery of Yosemite Valley. Thus, it was custodians and photographers such as Charles Leander Weed, Carlton E Watkins, J.J. Riley, George Fiske, Ansel Adams, and many others that interpreted and introduced Yosemite to the world.
The book will be available at events, area bookstores, independent retailers, online retailers, and here.
Legendary Locals is an imprint of Arcadia Publishing, the nation’s leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States. Discover more than 8,500 books on the heritage of America’s people and places. Visit: arcadiapublishing.com.
Leroy Radanovich, a Yosemite and Mariposa County Historian and Photographer has documented the fascinating history of the areas, living in Mariposa and working for the last thirty years in Yosemite National Park. Through Mariposa Heritage Press and with his then partner Scott Pinkerton, Leroy has photographed, written and published four books on Mariposa County History. Mariposa Heritage Press published the definitive history of the Mariposa County Court House, with Jim Law released Memories of El Portal, with Shirley Sargent published Mother Lode Memories, and working with Jim Cunningham and Molly Pierce, edited, re-designed and published the Truth About Joaquin Murietta by J.C. Cunningham.
Working with Arcadia’s Images of America, Radanovich wrote and published four books containing 200 historic images: Mariposa County, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park and Vicinity, and Yosemite Valley Railroad. A long time columnist for the Mariposa Gazette, the oldest weekly publication in California, he has commented on a wide range of subjects for fifteen years. As he is no longer associated with the Mariposa Gazette, Leroy is ocassionally writing for the Sierra Sun Times, the region’s largest online newspaper serving Yosemite National Park, Mariposa, Merced, Madera, and Tuolumne Counties.
