Cemeteries are more than final resting places for the dead; they are gateways to an area's shared history.

Every hand-carved granite or marble monument, every faded wooden marker, holds a clue.
Western Sierra populations boomed with the discovery of gold and often dwindled as gold fever waned.
Cemeteries of the Western Sierra uses the lens of the cemetery to glimpse a rich and disappearing history.
Displaced indigenous populations, miners, dueling newspaper magnates, Chinese pioneers:
all are part of the mosaic of history represented in a historical cemetery.

From solitary graves in the forest to almost forgotten graveyards near the center of a town,
cemeteries tell a story not just of who may have died but also of who lived and what was meaningful in their time.

Christopher A. Ward is an archeological specialist and a contributor to numerous investigatory research projects
throughout California. He is a member of multiple organizations dedicated to the conservation of California's heritage,
including the Society of California Archaeology and multiple regional and county preservation groups.
He has spent hundreds of hours with historians, community members, and in the historical cemeteries,
historical libraries, and archives photographing and compiling research for this book.
He lives and works from Penn Valley.