Stranger Than Fiction

28th January
2016
written by Richard

Gambling ships were quite the vogue in the 1930s. Anchored three miles off the San Diego coast, ships like the Reno or Monte Carlo frustrated law enforcement but delighted the sporting crowd. Click below for a story I wrote many years ago about the ill-fated Monte Carlo, the wreck of which can usually be seen each winter at low tide in front of the Hotel del Coronado. This was originally published in Stranger Than Fiction: Vignettes of San Diego History (San Diego Historical Society, 1995).

The Gambling Ships of San Diego 

The SS Monte Carlo, beached at Coronado. From Stranger Than Fiction, p. 42.

The SS Monte Carlo, beached at Coronado. From Stranger Than Fiction, p. 42.

16th April
2011
written by Richard

Way back in 1995, while in the employ of the San Diego Historical Society, I published a small collection of my stories in Stranger Than Fiction: Vignettes of San Diego History.  The articles were all based on primary sources found in what is now known as the Document Archives of the San Diego History Center. 

It’s a nice collection of stories illustrated by scores of  historical photographs in a book design by artist Jill Berry, who designed the Journal of San Diego History for many years.

Some of the stories have been reworked and expanded for my Union-Tribune column “The Way We Were,” but the original compilation is still in print and available at my book site through Amazon.com