author
J. A. (Jackson Alpheus) Graves
1852–1933
A California lawyer and businessman who also wrote vivid books of memory, travel, and outdoor life, he left behind a firsthand picture of the state as it changed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work blends local history with a personal, observant voice.
1 Audiobook
Out of Doors—California and Oregon
by J. A. (Jackson Alpheus) Graves
About the author
Born in 1852, J. A. Graves — Jackson Alpheus Graves — came to California as a child in 1857. He was educated in Northern California, graduated from St. Mary's College in San Francisco, studied law, and moved to Los Angeles in the 1870s, where he built a career as a lawyer and businessman.
Alongside that professional life, he wrote books drawn from experience and memory, including Out of Doors—California and Oregon, California Memories, 1857–1930, and My Seventy Years in California, 1857–1927. Those works are especially valuable for readers who enjoy eyewitness accounts of early California life, landscape, and society.
Graves died in 1933, but his writing still offers a warm, personal route into California's past. Rather than giving a distant historical summary, he wrote as someone who had watched the region grow and change over decades.