Known primarily for a trio of works about the Great Basin which mix folktales, fiction, sketches, and nature writing: In Miners' Mirage-Land (1904), The Loom of the Desert (1907) and The Land of Purple Shadows (1909).

The family homesteaded a ranch in Lassen Meadows between Lovelock and Winnemucca (near present-day Rye Patch Reservoir in Pershing County).

Her father established the Humboldt House hotel, hoping to capitalize on the newly completed Central Pacific Railroad line nearby.

Even more, she deeply felt what she had seen; the desperation of emigrants facing the most miserable part of their trek to Californian the barren face of Forty Mile Desert or Black Rock Desert; the fruitless wandering of prospectors in the hills; and Chinese and Indians livings as second-place people in the egocentricity of the white man's ways.

The young couple returned to Nevada and began ranching, but the life was hard on the Strobridge family.