Cheryl Anne Stapp

Portsmouth Square, San Francisco For certain, those thousands of young men infected with gold fever suffered from culture shock when they...

Enjoying wine at a family gathering in Anaheim c. 1860   Nowadays we think of it as the home of the Magic Kingdom, the place where...

It is famous for its raisins, for its geographic centrality midway between northern and southern California; and as a gateway to...

This year, the California State Fair—touted as the State Fair & Food Festival—runs from July 14 through July 30. As in past years, the...

We call them Aphorisms: those pointed, succinct, pithy observations through which we express a truth or general wisdom of what is, not...

There have been citrus groves in California since the late 18th century, when the Spanish mission-builders brought seeds with them from...

Hundreds of Sacramento seniors still remember the acres of hop fields that stood tall along Fair Oaks Boulevard when they were kids....

Wine is big business in California. In 4,763 wineries large and small throughout the state, California vintners produce 87% of America’s...

It’s called the Russian River because there were Russian settlements on the river itself and at other nearby sites from 1812 to 1841....

California’s north-south cultural split began as early as 1821, the year Mexico won its independence from Spain and acquired the province...

In August 1839, after several days of sailing upstream on the Sacramento River, a Swiss citizen named John Sutter arrived in the...

There is no doubt that Americans have a passion for cheese: in snacks, sandwiches and main dishes. Why, Crayola even named one of its...

California’s odd shape permits its northern port city of Eureka to be the most westward city in the continental United States—yet its...

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

Today, commercial mills are complex, high-tech installations. Long ago, however, skilled artisans hand-carved granite millstones into...

Several weeks elapsed after the January 1848 gold discovery before people started believing it was genuine…and then events started...