{"id":865,"date":"2023-07-22T20:00:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-22T20:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maderatribustg.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=865"},"modified":"2026-05-13T18:20:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:20:02","slug":"stagecoach-driver-turned-to-bounty-hunting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/stagecoach-driver-turned-to-bounty-hunting\/","title":{"rendered":"Stagecoach driver turned to bounty hunting"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"865\" class=\"elementor elementor-865\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-339de82e e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"339de82e\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-2fcf171f elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"2fcf171f\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Madera County has produced its share of rough and tumble, two-fisted drinking, street fighting pioneers. They pop up all through the pages of local history to spice up the pieces of our past. Very near the top of a list of such characters is Hiram Lee Rapelje, a local stage driver who was as quick with his guns as he was his fists.<\/p><p>Rapelje, came to Madera from Merced in the late 1870\u2019s. In spite of his reputation as a brawler, he was hired by Henry Washburn to drive a stagecoach on the Madera to Yosemite route. Three times a week in front of Mace\u2019s Hotel on Yosemite Avenue, Rapelje, climbed up into the driver\u2019s seat and whipped up his six horses to begin the two day journey to the Big Trees and Wawona.<\/p><p>Hiram Rapelje, never had an accident; he never lost control, and highwaymen never accosted him. Washburn had chosen well, or at least he apparently thought so. When President Ulysses S. Grant visited Madera, Hiram Rapelje was picked to drive the stage that took him and his party to Yosemite.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Madera County has produced its share of rough and tumble, two-fisted drinking, street fighting pioneers. They pop up all through the pages of local history to spice up the pieces of our past. Very near the top of a list of such characters is Hiram Lee Rapelje, a local stage driver who was as quick [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":40628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_angie_page":false,"page_builder":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[32,43],"class_list":["post-865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-culture","tag-law"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}