Extracts

August 30, 2003 – Day of Departure
After much work and many delusions, I never would have believed it was possible to arrive at this point:  leaving for field research with a team of students (researchers) in order to pursue my interest of the Italian presence in the West.

September 14, 2003 – In search of the Garibaldi Mine
Today is a special day;  I want to find a mine constructed in 1876 by two Italians, Jeff and Joe Nosanno, in the mountains west of Death Valley, close to the mining town of Skidoo, now only a ghost town.  It seems that the two Italians made a fortune of $70,000 and then sold the mine for $30,000 in the 1880’s; it then changed name to the Blue Bell Mine and was abandoned in 1911.