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California's Olden Golden Days
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Oct 2, 20245 min read
Kit Carson in California
Frontiersman Christopher “Kit” Carson—a legend in his own lifetime— was in California several times during its Mexican period, as a...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
May 29, 20243 min read
The Mystery of Peter Lebeck
No one really knows who Peter Lebeck was, but we do know that he died in the wilds of the Tehachapi Mountains, the victim of a grizzly...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Mar 13, 20243 min read
Doña Francisca Vallejo
A dark-eyed beauty, Francisca Carrillo was born in San Diego when California was still a province of Imperial Spain, and raised in the...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Oct 11, 20234 min read
Battle of Natividad
The Mexican-American War came to Pacific shores in July 1846, when U. S. Navy warships invaded the seaports at Monterey and San Francisco...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Nov 2, 20223 min read
Chief Estanislao
His namesakes are Stanislaus County, and the Stanislaus River. He was Chief Estanislao, famous for leading bands of armed Native...
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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
Sep 21, 20222 min read
Susceptible to Seizure
In centuries past, and as global knowledge expanded in the Age of Sail, any attractive land that was scantily occupied and poorly...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Sep 7, 20223 min read
The Impressive Sepulvedas
A number of modern structures in California’s southland bear the name of a family who settled there in the long-ago days when the Spanish...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Aug 17, 20223 min read
A Good Man
Yet another new governor—in fact the sixth governor that authorities in Mexico City had appointed since 1822—arrived at Monterey, the...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Apr 19, 20223 min read
Serving California by Sea
In the Age of Sail, not everyone who entered California’s harbors came to settle. In the early 1820s, the ships of many nations began...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Nov 10, 20213 min read
Land Laws: Land Grants vs. Homesteads
During the centuries it belonged to Spain, and the few decades it was a province of Mexico, California had no homestead laws that gave...
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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
Aug 25, 20212 min read
Dining at an Outback Outpost
In August 1839, after several days of sailing upstream on the Sacramento River, a Swiss citizen named John Sutter arrived in the...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
May 5, 20215 min read
So Many Flags Over California
Over the centuries many flags have flown over California soil: the flags of nations, explorers, military units, trading companies…even a...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 10, 20202 min read
Chasing Horse Thieves
Horse thieves harassed Californians for well over 100 years. Horse stealing began in the late 18th century, when Spanish missionaries and...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Apr 1, 20202 min read
Pegleg's Lost Mine
Few things inflame men’s imaginations as the idea of a hidden fortune in gold— so the tale of Pegleg Smith and his lost gold mine has...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Feb 12, 20201 min read
Mexican Pioneer Don Ignacio Martinez
Martinez, California, and the adjacent town of Pinole, date their names, indeed their very existence, back to the days of Mexican rule....
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Dec 4, 20191 min read
Sacramento's First Settler
Swiss immigrant John Augustus Sutter arrived in the Sacramento Valley in 1839, when California was still a province of Mexico. As a...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Oct 23, 20191 min read
Yankee Ships Capture Pacific Trade
Shortly after the close of the American Revolution, Boston whalers began navigating in California waters, hunting the prized sea otter....
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Oct 16, 20192 min read
Pattie's Tall Tale
Are tall tales accepted as fact just because the story is published in a memoir—and therefore, “must be” true? Consider the smallpox...
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