Cheryl Anne Stapp
Creating Marysville
Early on in the California Gold Rush, one new “gold strike” after another sent fortune hunters scrambling farther afield from the...
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California's Olden Golden Days
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Aug 14
- 2 min
Gordon's Ferry
Gold was discovered on the American River in January, 1848. By the end of that year, this original gold district had swollen to encompass...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jun 12
- 3 min
Legend of the Lost Gunsight Mine
Legends of lost treasure are always intriguing, aren’t they? California history has several legends of “lost” mines of gold and other...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- May 1
- 4 min
San Francisco's 6th Great Fire
California’s Gold Rush-era mining camps and towns were all vulnerable to fire. The only light sources were candles and kerosene lamps,...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jan 24
- 2 min
Gold Discovery Anniversary
Today, January 24, 2024, is the anniversary of the California gold discovery, an event that changed the known world 176 years ago. On a...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jan 3
- 2 min
To the Gold Mines by Sea
For the frenzied gold rushers who traveled to the California gold mines by sea, the voyage itself was truly a great adventure … just not...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Dec 13, 2023
- 2 min
Tokens for Christmas
During the chaotic early days of the California Gold Rush, the majority of the population were men who were far from home, seeking their...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Nov 15, 2023
- 2 min
Murphys
Most of them are still there, lining tree-shadowed Main Street, and still in operation: the now-historic structures that were built in...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Nov 8, 2023
- 4 min
Mountain of Gold
They said it was the greatest gold discovery since James Marshall’s original discovery at Coloma in 1848. In November 1855, following the...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Nov 1, 2023
- 3 min
Taylor's Pioneer Paper Mill
He turned out to be one of the lucky gold rushers . . . though it can certainly be said that he made his own luck. Three-plus years after...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Oct 25, 2023
- 2 min
Goin' Upriver to the Gold Mines
In 1849, gold rushers who went West by sea still had to travel upriver to reach the interior gold regions, after their ship landed at San...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Oct 18, 2023
- 2 min
Shipboard Grub
The stampede from America’s Atlantic Coast started in early December, 1848, when President James Polk publicly confirmed that the gold...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jul 12, 2023
- 2 min
Rise & Decline of Sutterville
It was supposed to be the realization of a dream: a dynamic new town laid out on a low bluff overlooking the Sacramento River, where a...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- May 17, 2023
- 2 min
Auspicious Beginnings
Within a few months, the 1848 gold discovery turned pastoral California into a hotbed of mining and commercial activity. Seemingly...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- May 3, 2023
- 2 min
Civilizing Influences
In 1849, California’s Gold Rush population, statewide, was 92% male. As reported in the Eastern press, the state of affairs in that...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Apr 5, 2023
- 2 min
Reality Check
California suffered its first painful economic readjustment in the mid-1850s, although the many reasons for it were not readily apparent...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Feb 22, 2023
- 2 min
A Wicked Woman
They say that there were more women of ill repute than there were decent ladies, in California, during the early years of the Gold Rush....
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Feb 8, 2023
- 2 min
Fatal Contest
Haste was the imperative to bedazzled gold-rushers, men near-frantic to get to the gold fields and stake their claim on a promising slice...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Dec 7, 2022
- 2 min
Her Crowning Glory
In July 1849, as hordes of gold-rushing men were swarming into California, a French hairdresser arrived in San Francisco and immediately...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Oct 5, 2022
- 2 min
The Feminine Advantage
Women were scarce in Gold Rush-era California, a mere 8% of the state-wide population in 1850, and only 30% ten years later, in 1860....
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