Cheryl Anne Stapp
Legend of the Lost Gunsight Mine
Legends of lost treasure are always intriguing, aren’t they? California history has several legends of “lost” mines of gold and other...
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California's Olden Golden Days
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Mar 133 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
Feb 282 min read
Provisions Going West
The courageous folks who braved the overland trek to California in the 1840s knew they had to take enough food to last six months. After...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Nov 1, 20233 min read
Taylor's Pioneer Paper Mill
He turned out to be one of the lucky gold rushers . . . though it can certainly be said that he made his own luck. Three-plus years after...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Aug 30, 20233 min read
James Lick's Legacy
When he died October 1, 1876, James Lick was the wealthiest man in California. From his deathbed in Lick House—the sumptuous San...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jul 12, 20232 min read
Rise & Decline of Sutterville
It was supposed to be the realization of a dream: a dynamic new town laid out on a low bluff overlooking the Sacramento River, where a...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 14, 20233 min read
His Excellency Norton I
The self-proclaimed Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, was a colorful citizen of San Francisco from the...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 7, 20232 min read
The Works of H. H. Bancroft
Hubert Howe Bancroft is one of the most famous names in western America, as the man who became one of the first important and respected...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
May 31, 20233 min read
Outposts on the California Trail
The intrepid individuals who traveled 2,000 miles overland from the Missouri frontier to California in the 1840s had very few waystations...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
May 3, 20232 min read
Civilizing Influences
In 1849, California’s Gold Rush population, statewide, was 92% male. As reported in the Eastern press, the state of affairs in that...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Apr 26, 20231 min read
The Blacksmiths
The mighty smith of folklore was the blacksmith, who worked with iron and steel and whose hammer wielded more force than his fellow...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Feb 1, 20234 min read
The First Wagon Party
They are known as the Bartleson-Bidwell Party, or alternatively the Bidwell-Bartleson Party, the first organized group of emigrants to...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Nov 9, 20223 min read
Questionable Circumstances
In the early years of the Gold Rush, the mining camps were terrorized by the bloody exploits of a ferocious bandit named Joaquin...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Oct 26, 20224 min read
History Lessons in Cemeteries
All Hallows Eve is next Sunday, when centuries-old pagan beliefs insist that ghosts and goblins haunt old graveyards at the Midnight...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Oct 19, 20223 min read
An Ordinary Pioneer
Does a life filled with adventure and diverse occupations beget a physically vigorous, mentally alert old age? That was certainly true of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Oct 12, 20223 min read
Antiquated Hicksville Cemetery
In October we start thinking about trick-or-treaters, and making plans to deck our porches with jack-o-lanterns and other Halloween...
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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 14, 20222 min read
Overland in Covered Wagons
What made some pioneer wagon trains successful, and others not? Partly luck, of course. But more than that, good fortune turned on the...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Mar 30, 20224 min read
A Remarkable Life
She was a woman of remarkable qualities; a woman who rose from being an uneducated young bride going west in a covered wagon in 1844, to...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Mar 23, 20223 min read
Haunted by Tragedy
Her real name was Meriam but everyone called her Mary. She was a Donner Party survivor, fifteen when she was rescued from a...
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