Martin Johnson, published author, historian, columnist, and reporter, has been on staff since March 2004. Martin has 60 years of entrepreneur experience, and 10 years experience in an advertising agency. His column Legends of the Gold Country are factual accounts of life in Calaveras County and surrounding areas before and during the gold rush era.

He has appeared before local Rotary clubs to talk about his column and share tales of this colorful gold rush history and has made personal appearances throughout the gold country as a noted author and speaker. Martin brings this era alive again in his column 'Legends of the Gold Country' based on his books, in the Gold Country Times newspaper.

Editor's Note: Author Red Johnson's books, 'Murder in the Gold Country, Hacalitas Gang's Raid on Rancheria' and 'Hell Will be To Pay, the True Story of Henry Plumer' have been published in monthly excerpts in his monthly column.  www.redjohnsonwesternauthor.com to order his books.

LEGENDS 2007                                               LEGENDS 2008

LEGENDS 2009                                               LEGENDS 2010 - 2011

LEGENDS 2012

Western Roots...
Novelist Red Johnson grew up at Donner Lake, in the high Sierra, before its discovery by millions as California's great vacation escape. Some of his writings are fiction, but his family's western roots are not. They include a Montana rancher, a Tipton, Iowa blacksmith, a judge who rode with General Sherman in the Iowa Brigade during the Civil War and a gunfighter whose name was not spoken in the family for fifty years. His gun was for hire to the highest bidder.
Red lives with his wife, MaeBeth, in California. Read about the author and you will get a clue as to why an 89-year old Fresno, California man says Western Seed is the best western he has ever read and he has been reading westerns all his life. Another testimonial: "Red Johnson writes fiction western novels that bring the characters alive, and I could not put the book down". Another woman discovered Red's home number and called, telling Red's wife: "Your husband kept me up all night, reading Western Seed of course! I must be first to have his next novel".

WESTERN SEED Fiction (post Civil War era)
Western Seed is 350 pages of excitement on each page.  It is the story of a young 16-year old man growing up fast, because he had to.  The book is about love, hate, revenge, and cruelty.  It is about friendship, bonding, and manifest destiny.  It is set in the post civil war era of a reconstructed South.  Jed Rumsey becomes the fastest man alive with a gun for one purpose, but life will deal him another set of cards. Red Johnson is working on his second novel about Benjamin Thorne, a man who was a big part of the gold rush history in California.

Murder in The Gold Country, A True story
Red has just published his latest book, the wildly entertaining, "Murder in the Gold Country, Hacalitas Gang's Raid on Rancheria". This book is very well researched, and a must-read for the lover of non-fiction history.  Never before has a book been written about one of the most significant events that happened during the California Gold Rush era: the raid on Rancheria Gold Camp.  The Mexican vaqueros of the Ione and Jackson Valley ranches had enough of being treated like dogs by the Anglo miners.  They would get their revenge! 
This was an era of the wildest of the Wild West.  In those times, a man would be hung for stealing a mule. What would the miners do to someone that shot and killed their camp mother, in the back, as she was lowering her baby out a window to save it from the Mexican raiders?  The retaliation was more horrific than the raid!  The chase of the real bad guys include some of the best lawmen the Old West produced, three gun fights, and one better than the OK Corral of Tombstone.  There exists two scenes, that if made into a movie, would never be forgotten as long as that movie-goer lives.  All that and every bit really happened.  This is a true story you will never forget!   

Hell Will Be To Pay, The True story of Henry Plumer 
California Gold Rush Miner, Rancher, Businessman, Nevada City Marshall, Sheriff of Bannack, Idaho Territory, and ...The Fastest Man Alive With a Gun

His challenge: "Then it will be pistols, and you may draw it, cock it, and I'll not go for mine until you have done so, and uttered the word to fire!" Six years in the making! A historical story of the gold rushes of: California, Idaho, & Montana. Accounts of spectacular gunfights!

Until now, Henry Plumer was known as one of the worst criminals of the old west. One author went so far as saying, he was "one of the ten worst criminals of all time". This compared him to Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein. I say "until now" because this book will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Sheriff Plumer was innocent of all the alleged crimes he was accused of by the Vigilantes of Montana.

Go online to: www.redjohnsonwesternauthor.com to order his books.

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