Booknotes: Crimewave

New Arrival:

• Crimewave: Murder and Mayhem in the Far West, 1850-1900 by Matthew Bernstein (UNT Press, 2026).

When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in California in 1848, a veritable tidal wave of domestic and foreign prospectors descended upon the U.S.'s newly acquired territory looking to strike it rich. The criminal activity that accompanied that mass influx in population and persisted over the next half-century is the subject of Matthew Bernstein's Crimewave: Murder and Mayhem in the Far West, 1850-1900. In it, Bernstein documents "twenty-four of the most audacious and chaotic incidents in the Far West, bringing to light stories from frontier California that have too long remained hidden."

From the description: "The gold in the streams and mountains attracted prospectors, but criminals found other ways to enrich themselves. Through crooked games of chance, highway robbery, outright assassination, and schemes so devious they almost defy the imagination, the men and women that rushed to California brought the best and worst elements to a land already inhabited by wolves, mountain lions, and grizzly bears."

The following are prominent examples from Bernstein's collection: "Benjamin Franklin Washington, great-grandnephew of George Washington himself, fought in the Sacramento Riot of 1850 and participated in a duel against a rival newspaper editor in San Francisco. Lucius Fairchild, who would become a Civil War hero, witnessed the rise of a vigilance committee in San Andreas and its deadly aftermath. Charles Cora, a New Orleans gambler, helped spark the largest vigilance committee in American history when he gunned down a US marshal on a crowded San Francisco street." Events from the Civil War years include a mass prison break at San Quentin, the sinking of the Ada Hancock, and Confederate plans to capture U.S. steamships along the Pacific coast.

Crimewave details "a cultural phenomenon, the Wild West in California, a story rich with bloodshed, betrayal, and naked ambition."