Idah Meacham Strobridge

Born in Moraga Valley, California, in 1855, she grew up largely in northern Nevada after her family moved there in the 1860s. Life on a ranch in Humboldt County gave her a deep knowledge of the Great Basin, its weather, its long distances, and the people who passed through it.

She came to writing relatively late, beginning around age 40, and became known for a trio of desert books: In Miners' Mirage-Land (1904), The Loom of the Desert (1907), and The Land of Purple Shadows (1909). These works mix sketches, folklore, fiction, and nature writing, and helped earn her a reputation as an important early literary voice of Nevada.

Strobridge was also a skilled bookbinder. After years of hardship in Nevada, she later lived in Los Angeles, where she ran the Artemisia Bindery and, for a time, an art gallery called the Little Corner of Local Art. She died in 1932.