[2] He wrote several publications with Ernest Brown Babcock and published several field guides to birds with his son Robert C. Stebbins.

His family moved to South Dakota and then Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he attended North Community High School, playing on the baseball and football teams and graduating in 1898.

[4] During his time at Berkeley he organized a community garden project where local children grew fruits and vegetables for profit.

During his activities as one of the directors of the California State Fair, he initiated the idea of an industrial vocational department for grammar and high school boys.

It was instituted in the annual State Fair in 1916, with Stebbins in charge, premiums aggregating a thousand dollars being offered that year.

The development and success of the undertaking warranted premiums totaling two thousand dollars the following year, and it became one of the most popular attractions, and the exhibit became a permanent part of the fair.

California Governor Hiram Johnson appointed Stebbins a member of the Recreation Inquiry Committee.