top of page
California's Olden Golden Days
Search
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...
5 views0 comments
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...
13 views0 comments
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...
12 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jul 13, 20225 min read
Affair of Honor
Dueling was outlawed in California at its pre-statehood Constitutional Convention in the fall of 1849. However, the penalty imposed for...
12 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jul 6, 20222 min read
A History Museum's History
Today’s Sacramento History Museum, which opened to the public in 1985, is housed in a replica of the city’s 1854 City Hall and Waterworks...
5 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 29, 20223 min read
The Gem
In its heyday, Columbia was known as the “Gem of the Southern Mines” for its prodigious output of gold, averaging $100,000 or more per...
5 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 22, 20223 min read
Boom & Bust in Bodie
Once it was a good-sized mining settlement—a rip-roaring, wild-west boomtown. Today Bodie is a wind-swept ghost town, a tourist...
11 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 15, 20223 min read
California's Film Industry
Hollywood! To movie fans all over the world, the name is synonymous with glamour, stardom, and cinematic dreams; a place also known—by...
0 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 8, 20223 min read
The Sacramento: River of Gold
At 447 miles in length the Sacramento River is the longest river that flows through California, with a watershed that encompasses more...
281 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
Jun 1, 20223 min read
Ocean Shore Railroad
In May 1905, the public was thrilled when newspapers announced that a new enterprise was to build a railroad on a scenic route between...
11 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
May 25, 20223 min read
Proof is in the Picture
In mid-nineteenth century California, rich men tended to own racehorses, or perhaps sponsor a horse or two owned by someone else; or at...
6 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
May 18, 20221 min read
Dog Town Diggings
More than one gold rush mining camp was dubbed “dog town” by its inhabitants—miner’s slang for coarse, thrown-together encampments of...
21 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
May 11, 20222 min read
Foiled Intrigue
Perhaps it’s only myth or legend (for sure, certain story elements are questionable), but nonetheless it’s a romantic tale, published as...
2 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
May 4, 20223 min read
The American River
They thought the American River was just a lovely stream of fresh water flowing through the valley from somewhere high in the unexplored...
5 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
Apr 27, 20222 min read
Legendary Hank Monk
Gregarious, quick of mind and firm of hand on the reins, stage driver Hank Monk was a legend in his own lifetime—revered across the West...
4 views0 comments
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...
4 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
Apr 13, 20223 min read
Pony Brings News of Ft. Sumter
By April 1861, California had been a state of the Union for only ten and a half years. As yet, no telegraph lines connected it with the...
3 views0 comments
Cheryl Anne Stapp
Apr 6, 20222 min read
The Russian River
It’s called the Russian River because there were Russian settlements on the river itself and at other nearby sites from 1812 to 1841....
5 views0 comments
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...
50 views0 comments
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...
17 views0 comments
bottom of page