Cowboys, Gold Diggers and Railroad Builders

Books for Teens

To order any of these titles, contact the library by email, mail or phone. You may also request these titles online through our OPAC. Happy Reading!

Across America on an Emigrant Train by Jim Murphy.
RC 38715.
Robert Louis Stevenson, who would later become a famous writer, kept a journal as he traveled in 1879 from Scotland to California to join the woman he loved, first on a crowded boat and then on a series of crammed, woefully uncomfortable trains on the transcontinental railroad. The author weaves together Stevenson's perilous trip with the history of the railroad that forever changed America. For grades 5-8 and older readers.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London.
BR 12582 or RC 49486 or LP 222 or LP 392.
Buck, a St. Bernard mix, is stolen and trained to be a sled dog in the Alaskan gold fields. Abused by both men and dogs, Buck learns to fight ruthlessly until he finds a master, John Thornton, whom he loves and respects. For senior high and older readers.

Calamity Jane and the Lady Wildcats by Duncan Aikman.
WOD 39.
Collective biography of Calamity Jane, Cattle Jane Maxwell, Belle Starr, Lola Montez, Pearl Hart, and other women who lived unconventional lives in the wild west, taking advantage of pioneer freedom. Adult reading level.

The Chisholm Trail: The High Road of the Cattle Kingdom by Donald Worchester.
RC 18953.
A panoramic view of the long cattle drives on the Chisholm Trail in the 1870s and 1880s and of the life and work of the American cowboy. Describes the early cattle drives with a modest group of animals, the growth of trailing contractors with immense herds, and, finally, the ranch syndicates. Adult reading level.

Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries by David Dary.
RC 17130.
Comprehensive history of cowboy life from its beginnings in fifteenth-century Mexico to its great flowering in the American West. Includes the cattle industry, horses and equipment, social customs, trail life, and the modern myth of the cowboy. Adult reading level.

The Cowboys edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg.
RC 23238.
Short stories written over the past century about working cowboys, cattle drives, drovers, and life on the range, focusing on their problems, their loneliness, and the dangers they faced. Adult reading level.

Cowboys of the Wild West by Russell Freedman.
BR 6627.
Cowboys, many of whom were teen-aged or in their early 20s, were responsible for driving great herds across the plains in the 1800s. Describes their clothes and equipment, how they passed their days on the trail and on the ranch, and the big round-ups. For junior and senior high and other readers.

Down the Yukon by Will Hobbs.
BR 13641.
Alaska, 1899. In this sequel to Jason’s Gold, Jason and his girlfriend, Jamie, leave Dawson City in a race down the Yukon River to Nome, where new gold deposits have been discovered. Along the way they face sabotage, bears, and weather. For junior and senior high readers.

Dragon’s Gate by Laurence Yep.
RC 38610.
China, 1865. Fourteen-year-old Otter eagerly sails to California to join his father and his legendary uncle, Foxfire, as a laborer on the transcontinental railroad. Joining outcasts headed by Uncle Foxfire, a dreamer battling defeat by American racism and the fears of his Chinese companions, Otter begins a harrowing journey towards self-knowledge. Companion to Mountain Light (RC 26541), and Serpent's Children (RC 26540). For grades 6-9 and older readers.

The Dreamgivers by James Walker.
RC 40665.
When the Civil War ends, Zachary Cobb heads to California and becomes an undercover agent for Wells Fargo. His current assignment takes him into the Mohave Desert to investigate a series of stagecoach robberies. There Cobb finds more than he bargains for: railroad workers involved in the opium trade and a young boy who has lost both his parents. Adult reading level.

Gold Dust by Donald Dale Jackson.
RC 16721.
Account of the events that precipitated the California Gold Rush of 1849 and of the colorful men and women who streamed across a continent to strike it rich in the goldfields. Adult reading level.

The Great American Gold Rush by Rhoda Blumberg.
RC 31306.
Before 1848, California was a sparsely populated, unimportant Mexican province. But with the discovery of gold, said to be as common as clay, thousands of people from all over the world left their families, shut their shops, deserted their farms, and headed for California. Newspapers called them victims of "gold mania," or "gold fever." Blumberg vividly recreates the history of the Gold Rush. For grades 6-9 and older readers.

A Great and Shining Road: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroad by John Hoyt Williams.
RC 28277.
This cultural history of the transcontinental railroad deals with the people who helped lay the track as they blasted their way through mountains and fought off herds of buffalo. It tells of the railroad's effect on the Plains Indians and the development of the steel and timber industries as the number of track miles increased from 23 miles to 30,626 in 30 years. Adult reading level.

Iron Trail by Tim Champlin.
RC 27761.
As the gold and silver rush sweeps the Rockies, two railroads struggle for the right to lay track through the Royal Gorge. The battle between the Denver and Rio Grande and the Sante Fe Railroad has already cost hundreds of lives, and now Bat Masterson and his gang arrive to fight for the Santa Fe. Adult reading level.

Jason’s Gold by Will Hobbs.
BR 12786 or RC 50201.
When 15-year-old wanderer Jason Hawthorn decides to join the Klondike gold rush, he learns that his older brothers beat him to it. Jason spends a difficult year trying to find them, befriending writer Jack London and others along the way. Some violence. For junior and senior high readers.

The Journal of Sean Sullivan: A Transcontinental Railroad Worker by William Durbin.
BR 50723.
In 1867, 15-year-old Sean experiences both hardships and rewards when he joins his father in working on the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. My Name Is America series. For junior and senior high readers.

Kiowa Trail by Louis L’Amour.
RC 15032.
A cattle drive through Indian country and a nineteen-year-old's first love bring trouble and adventure to a couple of cowhands. Adult reading level.

Kit Carson, a Portrait in Courage by M. Morgan Estergreen.
RC 18968.
Biography of the wiry man who became a legend of the Old West. Based on unpublished notes and primary source materials, it also includes interviews and letters from Carson's family and friends. Adult reading level.

Magnificence and Misery: A Firsthand Account of the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush by E. Hazard Wells.
RC 21444.
Tale of adventure by a young reporter who set out from Ohio on a 10,000-mile journey that took him to the mighty Yukon to cover the Klondike Gold Rush for a newspaper syndicate. This is the true-grit account taken from his colorful dispatches conveying the excitement, danger, and hardships of daily life on that frontier. Adult reading level.

Murphy’s Trail by Kelly P. Gast.
BR 3412.
Mike Murphy jumps ship in California to try his luck as a cowboy. He finds himself pitted against the sniper who killed his boss, a large band of outlaws, and the unseen, sinister grandson of his dead employer. Adult reading level.

Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen E. Ambrose.
RC 50872.
A look at the investors, politicians, engineers, surveyors, and laborers involved in the construction of America's first transcontinental railroad. Records the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads' fierce competition, which ended in a team effort in 1869, to connect America's two coasts by rail. Adult reading level.

Sierra: A Novel of the California Gold Rush by Richard S. Wheeler.
RC 43937.
In 1849, young Ulysses McQueen heads for the California gold field, leaving his pregnant wife in Iowa. That same year, former soldier Stephen Jarvis strikes gold and makes his fortune. The two men become partners in a farming venture, just as McQueen's wife arrives to join him. Adult reading level.

Tales from Gold Mountain by Paul Yee.
RC 34790.
The author fashioned these eight stories from tales he heard as a child growing up in Vancouver's Chinatown and from historical research. They tell of the history of the Chinese in North America, during the gold rush, with the transcontinental railway, and in the canneries, and of the unjust laws and racial discrimination these immigrants encountered. For grades 6-9 and older readers.

Texas Cowboys: Memories of the Early Days edited by Jim Lanning and Judy Lanning.
RC 22941.
Anthology of first-person accounts of Texas cowboys recorded in interviews during the late 1930s. These reminiscences maintain the original language and are full of wit, slang, and characteristic exaggerations. They focus on cowboys in groups doing such things as dealing with stampedes, bronc busting, and eating chuck wagon food. Adult reading level.

The Trail Driver by Zane Grey.
BR 1459 or RC 9450.
A western combining a love story with an account of a great cattle drive from Texas to Kansas in 1871. Adult reading level.