DESERT LORE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA by...
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DESERT LORE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA by Choral Pepper (Sunbelt Publications/P.O. Box 191126/San Diego, CA 92156: $12.95; 176 pp., illustrated, paperback original). The former editor of Desert Magazine, Choral Pepper offers an entertaining collection of anecdotes, historical data and trivia about the Colorado Desert. The Coachella Valley was originally called Conchilla, due to the abundance of fossil conch shells found there: The current name is the result of a misspelling. Pepper specializes in tales of vanished treasure that range from lost emerald mines and the loot from stagecoach robberies to the quest for Pegleg Smith’s fabulous blackened gold nuggets.
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