Category: California
The Calavaras County Frog Jumpin’ Contest
https://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2025/06/10Jun25-Calavaras-County-Jumpin-Frog-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Each May in Angels Camp, California, thousands of people will come to witness a contest that could pay a winner…
A Trip to Angels Camp That Launched a Career
https://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2025/06/09Jun25-Calavaras-County-Jumpin-Frog-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)In 1865 Mark Twain came to Angels Camp, California. A tale he heard, or perhaps one he made up, became…
The Yo-Yo Museum
https://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2025/05/05Jun25-YoYo-Museum-3.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)When a small store in Chico, California decided to have some fun and create a local yo yo contest, they…
A Crane for a Yo-Yo
https://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2025/05/04Jun25-YoYo-Museum-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Imagine a yo you so large you needed a crane to lift it. That’s exactly what this man created and…
A Museum for a Toy
https://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2025/05/03Jun25-YoYo-Museum-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)We’ve all seen them. Many of us played with them as a toy. Perhaps you didn’t know it’s origin and…
The Celebration of Cinco de Mayo
https://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2025/05/20May25-Cinco-de-Mayo-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Many Americans celebrate Cinco de Mayo every May, but the date does not garner as much attention in Mexico. So…
Columbia, California
https://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2025/05/19May25-Cinco-de-Mayo-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Southeast of Sacramento you’ll find many towns that trace their roots to the gold rush days of the late 1840s. …
Tule Lake Internment Camp
https://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2025/03/05Mar25-Tule-Lake-Internment-Camp.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government began to worry that Japanese Americans living in this country…
The Chiricuhua National Monument
https://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2025/02/28Feb25-Chiricuhua-National-Monument-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Southeastern Arizona has been a place for ranchers to graze cattle for well over a century. However, one ranch family…
Where Two Cultures Collided
https://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2025/02/27Feb25-Chiricuhua-National-Monument-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)It’s a place of amazing natural beauty, with stone spires rising high into the sky. It’s also a place of…
Record Setter Jackie Cochran
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2023/02/22Feb23-Indio-California-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Most people have heard of Chuck Yeager, but most have not heard of his good friend Jackie…a pilot who set…
The Depot in the Middle of Nowhere
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2023/02/21Feb23-Indio-California-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)When the rails came through this stretch of dry wilderness, the only people living here were the Cahuilla Indians. This…
A Trip to Hulaville
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/11/14Nov22-Hulaville.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Most people think you need to go to Hawaii to see hula girls. Not so. In fact, it was one…
Liberation from a POW Camp
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/07/22Jul22-Sy-Brenner-4.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Life inside a POW camp in Germany was a struggle for survival. Yet inside the barbed wire and the horrific…
Strange Messages in the Night
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/07/21Jul22-Sy-Brenner-3.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Sy Brenner was an American soldier captured by the Germans and held in a POW camp. He was fearful his…
Becoming the POW Doctor
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/07/20Jul22-Sy-Brenner-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Sy Brenner served as a medic during World War II. However, he was about to be asked to serve in…
Sy Brenner KIA?
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/07/19Jul22-Sy-Brenner-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)November 29th, 1944 was the night Sy Brenner was killed in action in southern France. At least that’s what many…
Elmer Long’s Bottle Tree Forest
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/06/17Jun22-Elmer-Long-Bottle-Tree.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Elmer Long doesn’t manage a national forest, but it may be the most unique collection of trees in the nation. …
Route 66 to See Fonzy
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/05/30May22-Santa-Monica-Pier-3.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Dan Rice has traveled the length of Route 66 over two dozen times. It might surprise people that his original…
A Famous Sign, Reborn
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/05/27May22-Santa-Monica-Pier-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Today this sign on Santa Monica Pier attracts a steady stream of travelers who pose by it. Interestingly, it’s a…
