Cheryl Anne Stapp

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

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

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

Jared Sheldon, a carpenter by trade, officially received a Mexican land grant of 22,130 acres along the Cosumnes River in 1844—in payment...

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...

During the California Gold Rush, a number of steam-powered ships chugged up and down between San Francisco Bay and the major northern...

So many legends surround the nineteenth century stage driver Charley Parkhurst that it’s difficult now to separate fact from fiction. In...

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...

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

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

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

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

In her own lifetime Eliza Farnham was nationally known as an author, and as an exceptional woman on the leading edge of several social...

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

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

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

Although it was the second newspaper published in California, the California Star was the first newspaper published in San Francisco. Its...

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

Hugh Campbell Murray was—and still is—the youngest chief justice of the California Supreme Court the state has ever had. He was...

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