Chris Epting: 19 books

In Hello, It’s Me, pop culture historian Chris Epting celebrates the cultural touchstones of the past 40 years-the music, movies, television, hobbies, and fads that have defined recent generations.Whether it’s shooting hoops with NBA legend Elgin Baylor, drinking whiskey in a Radio City Music Hall...

Amid the tourist bustle in the biggest beach city in Orange County, hometown personalities and their stories are Chris Epting's business. As a widely published author and columnist for the "Huntington Beach Independent," Epting has covered the famous and not-so-famous, the local people, places and events...

The great acts--from Hendrix to Joplin and from Kiss to Korn--played to the Orange County crowd at such classic venues as Huntington Beach's Golden Bear, the Anaheim Convention Center and Anaheim's Doll Hut. Rock 'n' roll's OC roots include Leo Fender's electric guitar factory in Fullerton and the birthplace...

Orange County was created in 1889. Soon, wilderness evolved into farmlands and communities supported by a year-round harvest of Valencia oranges, lemons, avocados, walnuts, and more. In the 1950s, aerospace and industry expanded here, and today the county boasts more than three million people. This collection...

Capturing such quintessentially American pastimes as baseball and road trips in one fascinating work, the updated and expanded third edition of Chris Epting’s Roadside Baseball chronicles more than 500 important events in baseball history with detailed descriptions of the event and information on...

During his whirlwind 1903 tour of the western states, President Theodore Roosevelt paid his first visit to California. In between the appearances and pageantry, he embarked on three days of epic adventure in the wilderness of Yosemite with the famous and influential naturalist John Muir. A lover of the...

The Orange County Fair is one of Southern California's most anticipated summer events. From its first year in 1890 with a few livestock exhibits and horse races, the fair evolved into what is now a month-long extravaganza of rides, games and entertainment that still celebrates the importance of local...

For over 100 years, Huntington Beach, a.k.a. "Surf City, USA," has come to represent the true beach culture of Southern California. Originally called Pacific City, it was when railroad magnate Henry Huntington first ran his train line down in 1904 from Los Angeles, approximately 40 miles north, that...

John Oates was born at the perfect time, paralleling the birth of rock ‘n roll. Raised in a small Pennsylvania town, he was exposed to folk, blues, soul, and R&B. Meeting and teaming up with Daryl Hall in the late 1960s, they developed a style of music that was uniquely their own but never abandoned...

Baseball�s long and storied history in Los Angeles has been played at venues including the turn-of-the-century Chutes Park, which was part of an amusement park, as well as Gilmore Field, where the Hollywood Stars played, and Wrigley Field, where many movies and television shows were filmed. The 1923-vintage...

In her extraordinary swimming career, Shirley Babashoff set thirty-nine national records and eleven world records. Prior to the 1990s, she was the most successful U.S. female Olympian and, in her prime, was widely considered to be the greatest female swimmer in the world.Heading into the 1976 Olympic...

The Polo Grounds is one of baseball's most sacred ballparks. Built below Coogan's Bluff in 1891, the bathtub-shaped stadium played host to iconic baseball moments, including Willie Mays's famous catch in the 1954 World Series and Bobby Thomson's "shot heard "round the world." The era before those moments...

Orange County formally separated from Los Angeles County in 1889, and there�s been no looking back. Wilderness gave way to rich farmlands, where oranges, lemons, avocados, and walnuts made agriculture the new county�s most important industry; the region was actually named for the prevalence of its...

Opened to the public in June of 1923, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum can arguably be called "America's Most Historic Sports Stadium." In 1984 the Memorial Coliseum was declared a State and Federal Historic Landmark for its contributions to both the State of California and the United States. The history...