Cheryl Anne Stapp

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...