A Tale of Two Cities and a Train

History of the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad 1874-1942
by Juanita Kennedy Browne
Nevada County Historical Society, January 1, 1990
Paperback, 216 pagesA Tale of Two Cities and a Train rolls, chronologically, through the history of the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad from 1874 to 1942, with short stops at the “Bear River Bending and Cable Snapping Caper” in 1963 and the “Return of Engine No. 5” in 1986. The book includes 239 rare photographs and information garnered from contemporary newspapers.

Included among the lively and informative chapters are such titles as “Dormant Weasel Stirs,” “Battling Snowballs and Lions,” “Of Cows and Drunks and Battered Engines,” “When the Boys Went Off to War with Spain,” “A Shortcut to Colfax,” “How Much Is that Alligator in the Window?” “Most People Will Never Own a Car,” “Invasion of the Trucks,” “The Future Lies Ahead,” and much more.

Juanita Kennedy Browne was born in Commerce, Oklahoma, and grew up in the heart of a lead and zinc mining district in that state. In 1973 she and her husband and their sons moved to Grass Valley, and became fascinated by the similarity between the hardrock gold mines of Nevada County and the mines in Oklahoma. She wrote hundreds of articles about California and the West, and received awards for her writing from the American Association for State and Local History, the California Historical Society, the Conference of California Historical Societies, and the Nevada County Historical Society.