The official histories of places on the map can be a bit on the plain-vanilla side, featuring the dates and the places and the people and how they effected change in their communities.
Katy Tahja prefers a story with a bit of personality... like the gnarled old stagecoach driver, rather than the map of stagecoach routes. This is the approach she takes in "An Eclectic History of Mendocino County," a collection of stories from the last 150 years on the California Coast.
The author visits to talk about her self-published labor of love. Here's a link to a previous history she wrote...