Cheryl Anne Stapp
Her Crowning Glory
In July 1849, as hordes of gold-rushing men were swarming into California, a French hairdresser arrived in San Francisco and immediately...
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California's Olden Golden Days
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Oct 5, 20222 min read
The Feminine Advantage
Women were scarce in Gold Rush-era California, a mere 8% of the state-wide population in 1850, and only 30% ten years later, in 1860....
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Sep 28, 20223 min read
Hucksters and Scalawags
Families who trundled overland in covered wagons during the 1840s, hoping to build a better life in the West, didn’t always know to be...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Aug 3, 20222 min read
The Finest Wines in the World
Wine is big business in California. In 4,763 wineries large and small throughout the state, California vintners produce 87% of America’s...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jul 20, 20222 min read
A Spectacular Gateway
Famed explorer John Charles Frémont, the leader of several U.S. Army Topographical Corps mapping expeditions across the West, gave the...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 29, 20223 min read
The Gem
In its heyday, Columbia was known as the “Gem of the Southern Mines” for its prodigious output of gold, averaging $100,000 or more per...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 22, 20223 min read
Boom & Bust in Bodie
Once it was a good-sized mining settlement—a rip-roaring, wild-west boomtown. Today Bodie is a wind-swept ghost town, a tourist...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 8, 20223 min read
The Sacramento: River of Gold
At 447 miles in length the Sacramento River is the longest river that flows through California, with a watershed that encompasses more...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
May 18, 20221 min read
Dog Town Diggings
More than one gold rush mining camp was dubbed “dog town” by its inhabitants—miner’s slang for coarse, thrown-together encampments of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Mar 9, 20223 min read
An Ordinary Woman
Teenaged Eliza Marshall emigrated with her family from England to the United States in 1839. They settled in Pawtucket, in the section of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Feb 2, 20223 min read
Striking Gold in Angels Camp
Mark Twain said he based his short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” on what he thought, at the time, was a...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jan 26, 20223 min read
Golden Island
Not long after Marshall’s January 24th gold discovery at Coloma, three men stumbled upon a second gold find downriver—which became one of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jan 19, 20222 min read
The Luckless Gold Discoverer
On a chilly winter day 174 years ago this month, a construction site foreman named James Marshall picked up a few small flakes of gold...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Dec 15, 20212 min read
Christmas in the Gold Mines, 1849
Whether they came to California overland or by sea in 1849, hordes of predominately young men were joyfully exuberant, for they were...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Nov 3, 20213 min read
Early & Ongoing Partition Troubles
California’s north-south cultural split began as early as 1821, the year Mexico won its independence from Spain and acquired the province...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Sep 8, 20213 min read
Creating California's Counties
In the aftermath of the Mexican-American War, California existed in a state of political limbo. The peace treaty, signed in February 1848...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Aug 18, 20212 min read
Golden State Cheese
There is no doubt that Americans have a passion for cheese: in snacks, sandwiches and main dishes. Why, Crayola even named one of its...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Aug 11, 20212 min read
The Sloughhouse Graveyard
Jared Sheldon, a carpenter by trade, officially received a Mexican land grant of 22,130 acres along the Cosumnes River in 1844—in payment...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jul 28, 20212 min read
The Splendid California Stage Company
The California Gold Rush revitalized the stagecoach industry, which was waning in New England by the end of the 1840s, due to the rise of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 23, 20213 min read
Steamboats on the Rivers
During the California Gold Rush, a number of steam-powered ships chugged up and down between San Francisco Bay and the major northern...
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