Cheryl Anne Stapp

The self-proclaimed Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, was a colorful citizen of San Francisco from the...

Hubert Howe Bancroft is one of the most famous names in western America, as the man who became one of the first important and respected...

The intrepid individuals who traveled 2,000 miles overland from the Missouri frontier to California in the 1840s had very few waystations...

There were no animals of any kind on the rocky island when explorer Sebastian Vizcaino stopped there in 1602, naming it Santa Catalina in...

Within a few months, the 1848 gold discovery turned pastoral California into a hotbed of mining and commercial activity. Seemingly...

This gemstone—rarer than diamonds—is only found in San Benito County, California. Sometimes called the “blue diamond,” Benitoite...

In 1849, California’s Gold Rush population, statewide, was 92% male. As reported in the Eastern press, the state of affairs in that...

The mighty smith of folklore was the blacksmith, who worked with iron and steel and whose hammer wielded more force than his fellow...

Seen from the outside, Winchester Mystery House is an enormous, grand jumble of fanciful turrets and spires. Inside, the sprawling...

California suffered its first painful economic readjustment in the mid-1850s, although the many reasons for it were not readily apparent...

Since the 1890s, California law enforcement agencies had employed women in caretaker positions—as matrons, supervisors, and other...

A woman born and raised amid the lush landscapes of 19th century Mississippi seems an unlikely candidate as a conservationist of...

Harriet Russell Strong was a brilliant woman who overcame personal heartbreak and financial catastrophe to become an agriculturist, a...

Elizabeth Follansbee was the first woman to be a member of the faculty at a medical school in California, also the first woman admitted...

Clara Shortridge Foltz never went to law school, yet she passed the California bar exam in September 1878, after studying law in the...

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....

Stagecoach travel in California’s 1850s Gold Rush era— and beyond—was no sedate buggy ride in the park. Passengers frequently complained...

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...

They are known as the Bartleson-Bidwell Party, or alternatively the Bidwell-Bartleson Party, the first organized group of emigrants to...

Many centuries before European explorers found California—for at least 10,000 and possibly as many as 20,000 years—an indigenous people...