bixby smith is best known for three highly personal memoirs of california history. the first, "a little girl of old california" (1920), was a brief memoir of her girlhood, later expanded into the book "adobe days" (1925). "adobe days" uses details of smith's childhood on the family sheep ranches to tell the intertwined stories of the pioneering bixby family as it rose to prominence in california and the development of los angeles from its frontier-town days to the end of the 19th century. it has been called "deservedly a classic of california autobiography ... [capturing] perfectly that intersection of civilization and frontier, new englandism and spanish southwest, which turn-of-the-century california defined as its own special heritage." she also wrote "milestones in los angeles: being a brief narrative of los angeles through five decades" (ca. 1933). at the time of her death, she was working on a book about the history of southern california.