Visit Old Town Sacramento for a trip through California's History
The Wells Fargo Museum Last week, in our history of Sacramento, we visited the home of the California Gold Rush. The gold rush of 1849 changed the face of the state. Over 300,000 people moved to California in the five years between 1848 and 1853, most of whom moved to the Sacramento area and the nearby mountains. The Sacramento area became the center of trade in the central valley, and the key supply point for prospectors. Goods were barged up the Sacramento River from San Francisco, and then distributed out to the mining towns. In 1850 the new state of California was trying to find a permanent place for its capital. In 1849 the territorial government had named San Jose as it home, and then the town of Vallejo, but when funding to build a capital building wasn’t found, they kept on looking. In 1852 the government moved to Sacramento temporarily, and in 1854 they named it the permanent capital of California. However it wasn’t until 1874 that capital building was completed. ...