The 'Empress of the World' was once the Bay Area's most elusive heiress.
ranch in 1872. The only daughter of John and Susan Wolfskill, two of the first English-speaking settlers in Winters, Edith Irene Wolfskill was spoiled and treasured. As she grew, so did her family’s fortunes. In Southern California, John’s brother William was among the first to introduce wine grapes, citrus and eucalyptus trees to the state. In Northern California, John and William ran Rancho Rio de los Putos, an enormous 18,000-acre land grant that spanned Solano and Yolo counties.
The disappearance of a beautiful heiress, wearing only a thin summer dress, prompted a media frenzy. The Wolfskills’ friend, politician William Chapman Ralston Jr., hired Pinkertons to track her. A few days later, a man passing Mussel Rock off Daly City saw a sad, weary woman sitting along the shore. She matched the description of the lost heiress, and the good Samaritan convinced her to get into his carriage.
Edith seemed to love it. She regularly went for long hikes, traipsing through Rockville and its namesake quarry, up to the bright blue waters of Lake Curry and down into what would become the edges of Fairfield. Everyone knew the wayward heiress as the town eccentric; some called her the “Empress of the World.” Perhaps it was because there was something still regal about her, even as she wore plain clothes and came home dusty from her meandering walks.
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