Dobie, Charles Caldwell: The Road From Potterville. v1. 3 Sep 2015
 

Charles Caldwell Dobie: American novelist and historian Charles Caldwell Dobie was born in San Francisco, CA, in 1881. He had to drop out of grammar school at age 14 because of his father's death. He took a job as an office boy in an insurance company, and stayed with that company until 1915, when he began to make enough money from his writing to devote his full time to it.

The majority of his work is about or set in his home town of San Francisco, where he spent his entire life (he never married). Both his fiction and non-fiction about his beloved city has been praised as "smooth" and "deftly written" by such literary figures as Carey McWilliams.

Dobie died in San Francisco on January 11, 1943

Excerpt
ANDREW CAMERON’S farm was the last touch of civilization upon the road from Potterville. Beyond, the road climbed boldly through the timber, straggling into a mere trail that sheep-herders from the parched San Joaquin country traversed in quest of perpetual spring and green pastures.