Cheryl Anne Stapp

Shortly after the close of the American Revolution, Boston whalers began navigating in California waters, hunting the prized sea otter....

Are tall tales accepted as fact just because the story is published in a memoir—and therefore, “must be” true? Consider the smallpox...

Have you ever wondered how the westward-emigrating pioneers of the 1840s and 50s managed to get their covered wagons over the cliffs and...

During the three hundred-plus years Spain claimed ownership of California by right of conquest, Spain’s official religion took a part in...

Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821—in general (though the specifics were different) for much the same political and...

When Franciscan friars Father Crespi and Father Junipero Serra came to colonize California in 1769, they looked upon this undertaking as...

A mere 300 years ago, while colonies on America’s Eastern Seaboard were developing, California’s vast stretches of geographically...