American California

Cheryl Anne Stapp

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...

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Land Laws: Land Grants vs. Homesteads

During the centuries it belonged to Spain, and the few decades it was a province of Mexico, California had no homestead laws that gave...

Cheryl Anne Stapp

Creating California's Counties

In the aftermath of the Mexican-American War, California existed in a state of political limbo. The peace treaty, signed in February 1848...

Cheryl Anne Stapp

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...

Cheryl Anne Stapp

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...

Cheryl Anne Stapp

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...

Cheryl Anne Stapp

A New Name: San Francisco

Perched on a sheltered cove in San Francisco Bay, the little hamlet known as Yerba Buena (good herb) had been so named by the Spanish...

Cheryl Anne Stapp

The Gold That Changed the World

Friday January 24, 2020, will be the 172nd anniversary of the gold discovery in California. On a crisp winter day in 1848, a carpenter...