This is a truly remarkable story. Russian fur traders moving down the west coast in search of more Otter (only a few years after Lewis & Clark headed home from Oregon), their ship wrecked on the Olympic Peninsula. The sailors escaped the wreckage only to have their women, including the captains wife captured by local American Indians. By the time the ships captain and men come up with a plan to rescue the women, the women do not want to go back with the sailors! The story is historically accurate, and has been retold here from Russian ship logs and the Quinalt oral history of the event. It is a fun one to read.

The author relies on Austin's newspaper (no longer in print) called the Reese River Reveille to describe what every day life in Austin was like, from its founding in the 1860s to about the 1950s. Most of the book focuses on the 1860s, when Austin was founded as a mining town. The book then discusses its growth and development, the struggles of its inhabitants in an isolated location, and the hopes for Austin's own "place in the sun" as a premier western town.

The book is easy to read and very enjoyable. Having spent about a month in Austin this summer, I was pleasantly surprised to find this book in my college's library. Recommended for anyone interested in frontier history.