Category Archives: Uncategorized

It’s California Poppy Day!

April 6th is California Poppy Day, honoring our state flower. The California Poppy was designated the state flower in 1903, and in 2010 April 6th was named an official state holiday (but not one where anybody gets the day off, … Continue reading

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Bidwell’s Old Adobe

After his log cabin on Chico Creek burned down in 1852, John Bidwell built this two-story (with a one-story wing) adobe building. It was his home, his ranch headquarters, as well as a tavern and a hotel for travelers on … Continue reading

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Table Mountain and Oregon City

Spring is running a bit late this year. With all the cool and cloudy skies we have had lately, the flowers are only just getting started. But with all the rain, the wildflower season will only get better and better. … Continue reading

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Classroom Visits

Fairview School’s Community Read-In is back and that makes me happy. Ever since I worked at the Orland Free Library, I have enjoyed visiting Fairview School in the Spring for the Community Read-In. All kinds of adults come to read … Continue reading

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Luzena Goes into Business

After two or three days Luzena and Mason Wilson sold their oxen for six hundred dollars and bought a hotel. Whatever you may picture as a hotel in 1849 Sacramento, your imagination exceeds the reality. The hotel we bought consisted … Continue reading

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What Mrs. Fisher Knows

Mrs. Abby Fisher must have been some cook. Her friends persuaded her to put her recipes in a cookbook, the first published by a black woman west of the Mississippi. Abby and her husband Alexander came to California in 1877. … Continue reading

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Luzena’s First Day

Luzena Wilson got up on her first day in Sacramento and went right to work. There was no time to lose. There was money to be made feeding hungry miners. There was no credit in ’49 for men, but I … Continue reading

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California at Last

Luzena Wilson finally made it to the crowded tent city around Sacramento. There she encountered men who were lonesome for the comforts of home. It was almost dusk of the last day of September, 1849, that we reached the end … Continue reading

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Luzena and the “Languishing Spark of Womanly Vanity”

Luzena and her husband and their two little boys were on the western, downward, side of the Sierras and close to the end of the trail— The first man we met was about fifty miles above Sacramento. He had ridden … Continue reading

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The Monotony of the Trail

Nothing but actual experience will give one an idea of the plodding, unvarying monotony, the vexations, the exhaustive energy, the throbs of hope, the depths of despair, through which we lived. Day after day, week after week, we went through … Continue reading

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