Cheryl Anne Stapp

In the Age of Sail, not everyone who entered California’s harbors came to settle. In the early 1820s, the ships of many nations began...

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

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...

Over the centuries many flags have flown over California soil: the flags of nations, explorers, military units, trading companies…even a...

Horse thieves harassed Californians for well over 100 years. Horse stealing began in the late 18th century, when Spanish missionaries and...

Few things inflame men’s imaginations as the idea of a hidden fortune in gold— so the tale of Pegleg Smith and his lost gold mine has...

Martinez, California, and the adjacent town of Pinole, date their names, indeed their very existence, back to the days of Mexican rule....

Swiss immigrant John Augustus Sutter arrived in the Sacramento Valley in 1839, when California was still a province of Mexico. As a...

Shortly after the close of the American Revolution, Boston whalers began navigating in California waters, hunting the prized sea otter....

Are tall tales accepted as fact just because the story is published in a memoir—and therefore, “must be” true? Consider the smallpox...

During the three hundred-plus years Spain claimed ownership of California by right of conquest, Spain’s official religion took a part in...

Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821—in general (though the specifics were different) for much the same political and...