Cheryl Anne Stapp
Hucksters and Scalawags
Families who trundled overland in covered wagons during the 1840s, hoping to build a better life in the West, didn’t always know to be...
California's Olden Golden Days
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Aug 3
- 2 min
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...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jul 20
- 2 min
A Spectacular Gateway
Famed explorer John Charles Frémont, the leader of several U.S. Army Topographical Corps mapping expeditions across the West, gave the...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jun 29
- 3 min
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...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jun 22
- 3 min
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...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jun 8
- 3 min
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...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- May 18
- 1 min
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...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Mar 9
- 3 min
An Ordinary Woman
Teenaged Eliza Marshall emigrated with her family from England to the United States in 1839. They settled in Pawtucket, in the section of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Feb 2
- 3 min
Striking Gold in Angels Camp
Mark Twain said he based his short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” on what he thought, at the time, was a...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jan 26
- 3 min
Golden Island
Not long after Marshall’s January 24th gold discovery at Coloma, three men stumbled upon a second gold find downriver—which became one of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jan 19
- 2 min
The Luckless Gold Discoverer
On a chilly winter day 174 years ago this month, a construction site foreman named James Marshall picked up a few small flakes of gold...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Dec 15, 2021
- 2 min
Christmas in the Gold Mines, 1849
Whether they came to California overland or by sea in 1849, hordes of predominately young men were joyfully exuberant, for they were...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Nov 3, 2021
- 3 min
Early & Ongoing Partition Troubles
California’s north-south cultural split began as early as 1821, the year Mexico won its independence from Spain and acquired the province...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Sep 8, 2021
- 3 min
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...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Aug 18, 2021
- 2 min
Golden State Cheese
There is no doubt that Americans have a passion for cheese: in snacks, sandwiches and main dishes. Why, Crayola even named one of its...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Aug 11, 2021
- 2 min
The Sloughhouse Graveyard
Jared Sheldon, a carpenter by trade, officially received a Mexican land grant of 22,130 acres along the Cosumnes River in 1844—in payment...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jul 28, 2021
- 2 min
The Splendid California Stage Company
The California Gold Rush revitalized the stagecoach industry, which was waning in New England by the end of the 1840s, due to the rise of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jun 23, 2021
- 3 min
Steamboats on the Rivers
During the California Gold Rush, a number of steam-powered ships chugged up and down between San Francisco Bay and the major northern...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jun 2, 2021
- 2 min
Charley's Secret
So many legends surround the nineteenth century stage driver Charley Parkhurst that it’s difficult now to separate fact from fiction. In...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- May 26, 2021
- 3 min
Bayley's Grand Dream
The palatial hotel that A. J. Bayley built long ago in California’s gold country still stands, though it’s empty now, and encircled by a...
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