Cheryl Anne Stapp
Calamity in Jackson
Years after the railroad came to Ione, the stagecoach was still a primary transportation mode in Amador County, and horses used for...
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California's Olden Golden Days
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Nov 23, 20221 min read
Tomorrow, A Day of Thanks
President Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving as an official national holiday in 1863. Before then, New England and other regions...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Nov 16, 20223 min read
Faint Hoofbeats from the Past
Its official name was The Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company, but that was too unwieldy, so everyone just called...
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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
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
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
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
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 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
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 31, 20224 min read
Cement Craze
Thousands of people poured into California during the 1850s: gold miners, merchants, farmers, families, professionals and tradesmen of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
Aug 24, 20222 min read
500 Acres of Beer Makings
Hundreds of Sacramento seniors still remember the acres of hop fields that stood tall along Fair Oaks Boulevard when they were kids....
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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
Aug 10, 20223 min read
Myth of an Island Queen
Once an intriguing fable captures the collective human mind, it is very hard to dismiss it—especially if the stark truth is less...
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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 27, 20222 min read
Historic Riverboat
It’s a hotel, restaurant and special events facility permanently moored at the Old Sacramento Riverfront now, but ninety-odd years ago...
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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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