In the late 1880s, Pleasant Valley, Arizona, descended into a nightmare of violence, murder, and mayhem. By the time the Pleasant Valley War was over, eighteen men were dead, four were wounded, and one was missing, never to be found. Valley of the Guns explores the reasons for the violence that engulfed the settlement, turning neighbors, families, and friends against one another. While popular historians and novelists have long been captivated by the story, the Pleasant Valley War has more recently attracted the attention of scholars interested in examining the underlying causes of western violence. In this book, author Eduardo Obregón Pagán explores how geography and demographics aligned to create an unstable settlement subject to the constant threat of Apache raids. The fear of surprise attack by day and the theft of livestock by night prompted settlers to shape their lives around the expectation of sudden violence. As the forces of progress strained natural resources, conflict grew between local ranchers and cowboys hired by ranching corporations. Mixed-race property owners found themselves fighting white cowboys to keep their land. In addition, territorial law enforcement officers were outsiders to the community and approached every suspect fully armed and ready to shoot. The combination of unrelenting danger, its accompanying stress, and an abundance of firearms proved deadly. Drawing from history, geography, cultural studies, and trauma studies, Pagán uses the story of Pleasant Valley to demonstrate a new way of looking at the settlement of the West. Writing in a vivid narrative style and employing rigorous scholarship, he creatively explores the role of trauma in shaping the lives and decisions of the settlers in Pleasant Valley and offers new insight into the difficulties of survival in an isolated frontier community.

John E. Weaver Excellent Reads Book Award for Historical Non-Fiction 2017 Maxy Awards Winner 2016 - Best Nonfiction Set amid the turbulent times of the late 1960s, Pleasant Valley Lost chronicles the last days of a family dairy farm condemned to destruction by a federal dam project. As the family struggles to find a new home and build their future, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moves into Pleasant Valley, ruthlessly destroying a community and its history. Pleasant Valley Lost is based on the true story surrounding the author's childhood farm. Originally part of the estate of Pennsylvania's fifth governor, the farm had been in the Swope family since 1939 and was located in one of the most fertile areas of the region. Pleasant Valley Lost also recounts the family's long-suffering devotion to baseball and the Philadelphia Phillies. Following many years of losing seasons, the Phillies finally provided cause for celebration when they claimed their first World Series title in 1980. Today, Pleasant Valley and the Swope farm are submerged under the Blue Marsh Dam.

The story of the Pleasant Valley School in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey reveals how the people of the Valley experienced education and community identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As industrialization and urbanization gradually replaced the predominantly agricultural and rural lifestyle of the nation, the people of Pleasant Valley experienced the same threats to their lifestyle that were felt by countless other rural communities in the United States. The stories of individual teachers, students, and community members who lived through these changes show us the human side of history. The community was divided by debate over changes to the education given to children in the rural schoolhouse while becoming united by attending the many community activities held there. The Pleasant Valley community reached its peak identity during the 1920s and early 1930s when education and community activities merged into a series of agricultural fairs held at the schoolhouse and brought notoriety and a sense of pride to the people of the Valley. After decades of debate, the school was closed and sold in the mid-1930s and the people of Pleasant Valley were confronted with the reality that they were losing their community center and not just their local school. This story also highlights the role of one family in the history of the school and how the schoolhouse and lot were used after the school closed in 1936. The George Wooden family arrived in Pleasant Valley in 1913 and over the next 90 years participated actively in the life of the school and community. Members of the family attended the school, taught in the school, transported students to the school, participated in and helped to organize community events at the school, and then purchased the school when it closed and converted it into a poultry farm. Finally, the Wooden family made it possible in 2003 for the schoolhouse to continue to educate people by ensuring that it became a part of Howell Living History Farm in the Pleasant Valley Rural Historic District, operated by the Mercer County Park Commission.