Today we continue to explore the heart of the Sacramento Valley, in many ways the center of early California statehood. The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1849—an event no one could have foreseen—and the international rush of humanity that soon arrived in San Francisco and Sacramento forever changed California and the U.S.
As for why we’re taking these history trips now: Summer is an excellent time to explore key destinations, because the excited youngsters who typically visit—by the busload—during the school year are otherwise occupied. Which makes it easier for traveling cranks and misanthropes to find a parking place or picnic table and just generally hear themselves think. During summer it’s also easier for families to take it all in at a more relaxed, thoughtful pace—a very good thing for young students of California history.
Sutter’s Fort in midtown Sacramento is the place to begin any study of early statehood. This state historic park, situated between K and L and 26th and 28th Streets (take the J Street exit from I-5) is a reconstruction of John Sutter’s New Helvetia (New Switzerland) compound, center of the vast agricultural outpost he hoped to build. Sutter arrived at a fortunate time when he put down roots here in 1839. California’s Mexican government worried about territorial invasions by trappers and mountain men, so Governor Alvarado happily granted the Swiss immigrant 50,000 acres. When the Russians abandoned Fort Ross, Alvarado’s successor gave Sutter still more land. By 1845, with fur trapping all but exhausted due to the near extinction of both beavers and sea otters, Sutter was the undisputed if unofficial king of Sacramento.
His reign didn’t last long, though his empire’s growth was limited only by lack of lumber. So, in 1848, he sent carpenter James Marshall to a site on the American River to build a lumber mill. Within five years of Marshall’s gold discovery, more than a half-million people arrived in the Sacramento, de facto capital of the gold rush, killing Sutter’s livestock, stealing equipment, and literally trampling his ranch as they rushed to the gold fields. He died a bitter and broken man in 1880.
Few Sutter artifacts are on display at the fort. But you can see the pewter lamp that Marshall used to illuminate the first gold he brought from Coloma, also a German prayer book, and opera glasses made from bone and glass. Possessions of other settlers include a spruce and ebony violin brought overland, and the tiny doll of Patty Reed Lewis, Donner Party survivor. Not to mention rich Gold Rush memorabilia.
Sharing territory with Sutter’s Fort—not ironically—is the California State Indian Museum at 2618 K Street. When John Sutter and his Hawaiian crew arrived in 1839, robust Maidu and Miwok populations had already been laid low by diseases introduced through contact with outsiders. Survivors were then all but eradicated by cultural displacement and straight-ahead slaughter. Yet California’s first people abide. This excellent collection of artifacts and exhibits, selected and approved by Native American elders, chronicles the material, social, and spiritual development of California native culture. Particularly fascinating is the significance of basketry, a sacred survival art in which the basketmaker first offers thanks to the plant world for the materials gathered, then becomes part of that world and the basket itself, thereby guaranteeing abundant future harvests. (Makes you wonder: Could basketmaking have saved John Sutter?) Listen for news of the California Indian Heritage Center, a new 43-acre collaboration that will replace the California State Indian Museum, planned for West Sacramento.
Kim Weir is editor of Up the Road, a nonprofit public-interest journalism project dedicated to sustaining the Northern California story. A long-time member of the Society of American Travel Writers, Weir is also a former NSPR reporter.