Cheryl Anne Stapp

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

In the 1850s the Mountaineer House was a well-known tavern and busy stage stop where multiple stagecoach lines rolled in daily to change...

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

In 1865, the overloaded passenger steamer Brother Jonathan suddenly encountered severe winds and rough seas after leaving San Francisco...

Theodore Dehone Judah was the brilliant engineer and visionary who convinced a group of Sacramento merchants, and the United States...

Many New England stagemen, whose livelihoods there were being steadily squeezed by the railroads, followed thousands of bedazzled gold...

Before the 1848 gold discovery brought thousands of fortune-hunters swarming into a recently-acquired, raw American territory, ordinary...

For twenty years southern California had poured money, and millions of printed brochures, into a publicity campaign to attract settlers...

It is still called Bullion Bend. It is a stretch of curving old stage road that once continued on from Placerville, California to Carson...

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

In June 1907, when faster, cheaper railroad networks had long since replaced cross-continental stagecoach transportation, a gentleman...

A self-made man from his early teens, Phineas Banning was one of the most colorful, charismatic characters in the history of Southern...

Driving a stagecoach required superlative skills: a quick eye, a steady nerve, a skillful hand on the reins, and a thorough knowledge of...