Cheryl Anne Stapp

Hundreds of Sacramento seniors still remember the acres of hop fields that stood tall along Fair Oaks Boulevard when they were kids....

Yet another new governor—in fact the sixth governor that authorities in Mexico City had appointed since 1822—arrived at Monterey, the...

Once an intriguing fable captures the collective human mind, it is very hard to dismiss it—especially if the stark truth is less...

Wine is big business in California. In 4,763 wineries large and small throughout the state, California vintners produce 87% of America’s...

It’s a hotel, restaurant and special events facility permanently moored at the Old Sacramento Riverfront now, but ninety-odd years ago...

Famed explorer John Charles Frémont, the leader of several U.S. Army Topographical Corps mapping expeditions across the West, gave the...

Dueling was outlawed in California at its pre-statehood Constitutional Convention in the fall of 1849. However, the penalty imposed for...

Today’s Sacramento History Museum, which opened to the public in 1985, is housed in a replica of the city’s 1854 City Hall and Waterworks...

In its heyday, Columbia was known as the “Gem of the Southern Mines” for its prodigious output of gold, averaging $100,000 or more per...

Once it was a good-sized mining settlement—a rip-roaring, wild-west boomtown. Today Bodie is a wind-swept ghost town, a tourist...

Hollywood! To movie fans all over the world, the name is synonymous with glamour, stardom, and cinematic dreams; a place also known—by...

At 447 miles in length the Sacramento River is the longest river that flows through California, with a watershed that encompasses more...

In May 1905, the public was thrilled when newspapers announced that a new enterprise was to build a railroad on a scenic route between...

In mid-nineteenth century California, rich men tended to own racehorses, or perhaps sponsor a horse or two owned by someone else; or at...

More than one gold rush mining camp was dubbed “dog town” by its inhabitants—miner’s slang for coarse, thrown-together encampments of...

Perhaps it’s only myth or legend (for sure, certain story elements are questionable), but nonetheless it’s a romantic tale, published as...

They thought the American River was just a lovely stream of fresh water flowing through the valley from somewhere high in the unexplored...

Gregarious, quick of mind and firm of hand on the reins, stage driver Hank Monk was a legend in his own lifetime—revered across the West...

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...

By April 1861, California had been a state of the Union for only ten and a half years. As yet, no telegraph lines connected it with the...