"One-Eyed" Charlie Parkhurst was a stagecoach driver and (probably) a trans man who led an awesome, cool life in the early days of California's statehood. Locally famous during his life, and then nationally afterwards, Charley's story is one very familiar to many: moving out to California and living your best life as your true self.

Music: Cabaret by Kai Engel

Sources

Reggie Sigal. ”the old west.” Karen lindsey, et al. Women: A Journal of Liberation, vol. 1, no. 3, 1970.

Hafen, LeRoy R. “Reviewed Work: Via Western Express & Stagecoach by Oscar Osburn Winther.” Western Folklore 6, no. 1 (1947).

Kathi Bristow, "Those Daring Stage Drivers", California Dept. of Parks and Recreation, 2008.

Charlie’s Obituary and story in the New York Times, January 9, 1880.

California State Parks map of Stagecoach lines in 1850s-1860s.