Politics/Public Affairs 3/4

California's Olden Golden Days

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Jul 14, 20211 min read

Protecting the West in the Civil War

As Civil War hostilities rapidly escalated in July 1861—and United States Army personnel stationed in California left for eastern...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Apr 21, 20214 min read

The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

One hundred fifteen years ago last Sunday, on April 18, 1906—a Wednesday—a devastating earthquake struck the northern coast of California...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Apr 7, 20212 min read

Mapping the West

When explorer John Charles Frémont and his exhausted company of U. S. Topographical Corpsmen reached the Sacramento Valley trading post...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Mar 10, 20213 min read

Rachel Larkin, Diplomat's Wife

Twenty-four–year-old Rachel Hobson Holmes boarded the trading vessel Newcastle out of Boston in September 1831. She was sailing for...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Mar 3, 20213 min read

Reformer Eliza Farnham

In her own lifetime Eliza Farnham was nationally known as an author, and as an exceptional woman on the leading edge of several social...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Jan 20, 20212 min read

Land of Geographic Extremes

California’s odd shape permits its northern port city of Eureka to be the most westward city in the continental United States—yet its...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Jan 13, 20213 min read

A Man of Violence

If political discord is bad today, it was even worse in the mid-19th century. In that era, heated disputes often led to stabbings,...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Jan 5, 20213 min read

First Newspaper in San Francisco

Although it was the second newspaper published in California, the California Star was the first newspaper published in San Francisco. Its...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Dec 9, 20201 min read

The Dragon Rocks Lighthouse

In 1865, the overloaded passenger steamer Brother Jonathan suddenly encountered severe winds and rough seas after leaving San Francisco...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Dec 2, 20201 min read

California's Odd Shape

California’s southern border was resolved in 1848 by international treaty after the Mexican-American War, but until 1849 its northern...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Nov 25, 20202 min read

A Day of Thanks

On October 3, 1863, following a Union Army victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announced to “the whole American people…in...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Nov 18, 20202 min read

The Man Who Engineered Miracles

Theodore Dehone Judah was the brilliant engineer and visionary who convinced a group of Sacramento merchants, and the United States...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Nov 4, 20202 min read

Chief Justice Hugh Murray

Hugh Campbell Murray was—and still is—the youngest chief justice of the California Supreme Court the state has ever had. He was...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Oct 7, 20201 min read

Women's Right to Vote

This week marks the 109th anniversary of the election that awarded California women the right to vote…though initially, it appeared that...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Jul 1, 20201 min read

The 1887 Land Rush

For twenty years southern California had poured money, and millions of printed brochures, into a publicity campaign to attract settlers...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Jun 24, 20201 min read

The Silver Bullion Heist

It is still called Bullion Bend. It is a stretch of curving old stage road that once continued on from Placerville, California to Carson...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

May 20, 20202 min read

"Lucky" Phineas Banning

A self-made man from his early teens, Phineas Banning was one of the most colorful, charismatic characters in the history of Southern...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Apr 8, 20202 min read

The Mechanical Water System

Sacramento’s Water Works Building was the city’s answer to its need for a reliable water supply system that could prevent a small fire...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Mar 25, 20201 min read

First Female Architect in California

Best known for her work on the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Julia Morgan designed more than 700 buildings after becoming, in 1904, the...

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Cheryl Anne Stapp

Mar 4, 20202 min read

Spirited Jessie Fremont

Privileged, headstrong, and in love with an “unsuitable” man, Jessie Benton—the daughter of powerful U.S. Senator Thomas Hart...

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