California's Olden Golden Days

All Posts
Gold Rush
Politics/Public Affairs
Agriculture
Spanish California
Mexican California
California Pioneers
Transportation
Culture
American California
Gold Towns
Wildlife
Native flora/fauna

11 hours ago
3 min

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 an...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Feb 24
3 min

About Johnson's Ranch

As hurried plans to rescue the snow-bound Donner Party took shape in early 1847, Johnson’s Ranch was designated as the base of operations...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Feb 17
3 min

Timeline of a Winter Deliverance

The Donner Party was an emigrant company composed of several families who decided to leave the main caravan of westward-bound wagons in o...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Feb 10
2 min

Gold Rush Valentines

Valentine’s Day was not completely unnoticed in gold-crazed California, although females—only 8 percent of the statewide population in 18...

2 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Feb 3
3 min

Riches to Rags

Theodor Cordua was the first European to establish a permanent settlement on the site of present-day Marysville, California. Ambitious, ...

2 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Jan 27
3 min

The Hastings Cutoff - Risky Business

The Donner Party became trapped in the snow-bound Sierra Nevada in part because they opted to take the new Hastings Cutoff, instead of st...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Jan 20
2 min

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 sou...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Jan 13
3 min

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, shooti...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Jan 6
3 min

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...

6 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Dec 30, 2020
2 min

New Year Celebrations of Old

During the early, chaotic days of the California Gold Rush, New Year’s Eve celebrations were mostly improvised: lonesome men in out-back ...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Dec 23, 2020
3 min

O Christmas Tree...

Christmas was not widely celebrated in our Thirteen Colonies before the 1775-1783 American Revolution, and afterward the holiday fell ent...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Dec 16, 2020
2 min

Forlorn Hope Re-enacted

On this day 174 years ago—December 16, 1846—seventeen poorly provisioned people set out across the snow-blanketed Sierra Nevada on makesh...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Dec 9, 2020
1 min

The Dragon Rocks Lighthouse

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

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Dec 2, 2020
1 min

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 lim...

1 view0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Nov 25, 2020
2 min

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 ev...

2 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Nov 18, 2020
2 min

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 Congr...

3 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Nov 4, 2020
2 min

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 twenty-se...

4 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Oct 28, 2020
2 min

Laundry Was Quite the Chore

When the only machines were a woman’s hands and arms, and washtubs were filled with hand-drawn buckets of well or creek water instead of ...

1 view0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Oct 21, 2020
3 min

The Old Rancho del Paso

This Sacramento Valley ranch is long gone, but its colorful history is legend…and its fame still reverberates in the names of streets, pa...

6 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Oct 7, 2020
1 min

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 ...

0 views0 comments

{"items":["603c2a552cf5970017266787","5ffe1c24b0cc1b0017b64799","5ffe1a0d98e6ae0017b459d6","601dd6f1216b4c0017ea69c0","6007808d7d37fa00175880bf","6010b86752aba00043971861","5fb451e444df7a001757129e","5fb856a09fd88d0017d5c841","5ff4fc2319672d0017522bd0","5fda46e8ad4594001708cdd7","5fd8082af8adaf0017c687ad","5fc958ebe59ad300170dcd95","5d55bd464fb2b00016144d04","5fb436deb3c85b0017165251","5fb5a14ed38e8800172bf073","5d5db6ea5740a20016d6fad6","5e9cda814624190017b092e9","5f5d1547ba6b1f0017333bbb","5f6d1635ec11c50017f4677e","5f1f5f123716a10017f9a45d"],"styles":{"galleryType":"Columns","groupSize":1,"showArrows":true,"cubeImages":true,"cubeType":"fill","cubeRatio":1.3333333333333333,"isVertical":true,"gallerySize":30,"collageAmount":0,"collageDensity":0,"groupTypes":"1","oneRow":false,"imageMargin":32,"galleryMargin":0,"scatter":0,"rotatingScatter":"","chooseBestGroup":true,"smartCrop":false,"hasThumbnails":false,"enableScroll":true,"isGrid":true,"isSlider":false,"isColumns":false,"isSlideshow":false,"cropOnlyFill":false,"fixedColumns":1,"enableInfiniteScroll":true,"isRTL":false,"minItemSize":50,"rotatingGroupTypes":"","rotatingCropRatios":"","columnWidths":"","gallerySliderImageRatio":1.7777777777777777,"numberOfImagesPerRow":1,"numberOfImagesPerCol":1,"groupsPerStrip":0,"borderRadius":0,"boxShadow":0,"gridStyle":1,"mobilePanorama":false,"placeGroupsLtr":true,"viewMode":"preview","thumbnailSpacings":4,"galleryThumbnailsAlignment":"bottom","isMasonry":false,"isAutoSlideshow":false,"slideshowLoop":false,"autoSlideshowInterval":4,"bottomInfoHeight":0,"titlePlacement":"SHOW_ON_THE_RIGHT","galleryTextAlign":"center","scrollSnap":false,"itemClick":"nothing","fullscreen":true,"videoPlay":"hover","scrollAnimation":"NO_EFFECT","slideAnimation":"SCROLL","scrollDirection":0,"scrollDuration":400,"overlayAnimation":"FADE_IN","arrowsPosition":0,"arrowsSize":23,"watermarkOpacity":40,"watermarkSize":40,"useWatermark":true,"watermarkDock":{"top":"auto","left":"auto","right":0,"bottom":0,"transform":"translate3d(0,0,0)"},"loadMoreAmount":"all","defaultShowInfoExpand":1,"allowLinkExpand":true,"expandInfoPosition":0,"allowFullscreenExpand":true,"fullscreenLoop":false,"galleryAlignExpand":"left","addToCartBorderWidth":1,"addToCartButtonText":"","slideshowInfoSize":200,"playButtonForAutoSlideShow":false,"allowSlideshowCounter":false,"hoveringBehaviour":"NEVER_SHOW","thumbnailSize":120,"magicLayoutSeed":1,"imageHoverAnimation":"NO_EFFECT","imagePlacementAnimation":"NO_EFFECT","calculateTextBoxWidthMode":"PERCENT","textBoxHeight":0,"textBoxWidth":200,"textBoxWidthPercent":50,"textImageSpace":10,"textBoxBorderRadius":0,"textBoxBorderWidth":0,"loadMoreButtonText":"","loadMoreButtonBorderWidth":1,"loadMoreButtonBorderRadius":0,"imageInfoType":"ATTACHED_BACKGROUND","itemBorderWidth":1,"itemBorderRadius":0,"itemEnableShadow":false,"itemShadowBlur":20,"itemShadowDirection":135,"itemShadowSize":10,"imageLoadingMode":"BLUR","expandAnimation":"NO_EFFECT","imageQuality":90,"usmToggle":false,"usm_a":0,"usm_r":0,"usm_t":0,"videoSound":false,"videoSpeed":"1","videoLoop":true,"jsonStyleParams":"","gallerySizeType":"px","gallerySizePx":940,"allowTitle":true,"allowContextMenu":true,"textsHorizontalPadding":-30,"itemBorderColor":{"value":"rgb(178, 195, 230)"},"showVideoPlayButton":true,"galleryLayout":2,"targetItemSize":940,"selectedLayout":"2|bottom|1|fill|true|0|true","layoutsVersion":2,"selectedLayoutV2":2,"isSlideshowFont":false,"externalInfoHeight":0,"externalInfoWidth":0.5},"container":{"width":940,"galleryWidth":972,"galleryHeight":0,"scrollBase":0,"height":null}}

2 3 4