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

2 days ago
5 min

So Many Flags Over California

Over the centuries many flags have flown over California soil: the flags of nations, explorers, military units, trading companies…even a...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Apr 21
4 min

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...

1 view0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Apr 14
2 min

Bad Odds for Bachelors

Nineteenth century singles had limited ways in which to meet someone to marry, especially those singles who lived in rural areas. This...

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Apr 7
2 min

Mapping the West

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

0 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Mar 31
3 min

Virginia Reed Murphy

Virginia Reed was twelve when her parents and younger siblings set out for California from their Illinois home in April 1846, traveling...

3 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Mar 24
3 min

Dame Shirley's Gold Mine

Praised as the most delightful first-person account of California’s gold mines, The Shirley Letters is a collection of 23 letters written...

3 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Mar 17
3 min

Margaret Frink, Pioneer Housewife

In the spring of 1850—bedazzled by sensational reports coming back from the California gold fields—Margaret and Ledyard Frink excitedly...

6 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Mar 10
3 min

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...

10 views0 comments

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Mar 3
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...

17 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...

2 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...

1 view0 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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

0 views0 comments

{"items":["608c6143dc456b0016d37f2b","607e16c939393f00156f409a","6036e7bcf08ef0005aa51e2b","6008c56e76a4d20017d84ade","60551c598fe82d0015139823","60497a9b678f390015160354","60402cd80e1f460057a57d86","60428493c4487b0042253557","603c2a552cf5970017266787","5ffe1c24b0cc1b0017b64799","5ffe1a0d98e6ae0017b459d6","601dd6f1216b4c0017ea69c0","6007808d7d37fa00175880bf","6010b86752aba00043971861","5fb451e444df7a001757129e","5fb856a09fd88d0017d5c841","5ff4fc2319672d0017522bd0","5fda46e8ad4594001708cdd7","5fd8082af8adaf0017c687ad","5fc958ebe59ad300170dcd95"],"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 5