Forgotten Trailblazer. This item is unavailable.Forgotten Trailblazer

Joseph B. Chiles, called by one historian, ‘the Adam of a generation of pioneers’ is the man that everyone knows and yet nobody knows.

In virtually every major work on the period of western migration, Chiles is mentioned. He was a friend of Broken Hand Fitzpatrick, Joe Walker, Kit Carson, John C. Fremont, Mariano Vallejo, John Bidwell, and most of the founding fathers of California. And yet there is no definitive work on the life and times of the man who crossed the continent seven times between 1841 and 1854, a period that encompassed the beginnings of transcontinental travel and the expansion of the United States to the Pacific Coast. Forgotten Trailblazer aims to fill this gap in our knowledge of the great migration experience that created modern California.

California’s Channel Islands - A History
(Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2015)
“This is a remarkable book in its completeness of research, its format, and its elegant writing style.”
Kevin Starr, former California State Historian and USC Professor of History Western Historical Quarterly, Winter 2016

“Dr. Chiles has performed a remarkable task in bringing out the history of our Channel Islands”
Santa Barbara News Press, November 15, 2015.

Justinian Caire and Santa Cruz Island – The Rise and Fall of a California Dynasty
(Arthur H. Clark Co.,2011)
“This well written and thoroughly researched history of the Justinian Caire family and their ownership of Santa Cruz Island holds its own against such popular television programs as Dynasty or Dallas... this book
is not only an accurate study of a complex history but an enjoyable read. It should not be missed.”
The Historian, Univ. of San Diego, Spring 2016.