Calistoga is a name unlike that of any other city in America, first uttered by a man who had intended to develop the "beautiful land"--or Tu-la-halusi as the land at the foot of Mount St. Helena was known to the region's native Wappo tribe--into a resort area rivaling that great eastern resort of similar geological character, Saratoga Springs, New York. During a promotional event, the developer, Samuel Brannan, was about to declare that he would make his hot springs resort community the Saratoga of California, when he transposed the names and declared he would make it the Calistoga of...