SACRAMENTO, the capital city of California, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Sacramento county, on the east bank of the Sacramento river, at the mouth of the American, midway between the Sierra Nevada and the Pacific ocean. It is on Federal high ways 4o, 5o and 99 ; has several airports, and is a station on the Chicago to San Francisco air-mail route; and is served by the Southern Pacific, the Santa Fe, the Western Pacific and three electric inter-urban railways, 12 auto-stage companies, and pas senger and freight steamship lines on the river to San Francisco. Pop. 65,908 in 1920, of whom 1,976 were Japanese, 831 Chinese and 10,873 foreign-born white ; 93,750 in 1930 by the Federal cen sus. The city occupies 14 sq.m. and is about 3o ft. above sea level. The mean annual temperature is 6o° F, and the mean annual rainfall is 18.28 inches. The fine State capitol (built 186o-69) stands in a park of 4o ac. (owned by the State) in the heart of the city. A mile east of the capitol (in another State-owned park) is old Ft. Sutter, restored and maintained by the State as an historic museum. Within the city limits are the State fair grounds of 119 acres. The city park system covers 1,219 ac. ; a municipal vacation camp is maintained in the mountains ; the municipal auditorium (completed 1927) seats 5,000, and the athletic stadium (1928) 25,000. Zoning ordinances are in effect, and a city-planning board was created in 1926. The public-school system provides instruc tion from the kindergarten through two years of a college course. At Davis, 14 m. west, is a branch of the College of Agriculture of the State university. The State library (350,000 vols.) has a fine law department and the most complete collection in existence on the history of California, and the Crocker art gallery houses one of the largest and most valuable collections in the West. Since 1921 the city has operated under a council-manager form of government. The assessed valuation of property in 1928 was $119,736,770.
Alvarado a grant of eleven square leagues of land. Settlers came, whom he welcomed, and his hospitality and prosperity made "Fort Sutter" famous. Situated as it was on the main line of overland travel, it soon became the greatest trading post in the West. Capt. Sutter employed several hundred men, had 13,000 head of stock on his ranges, a vast acreage of wheat and a large mercantile business. In 1847 he sent James W. Marshall to find a good site for a new saw-mill. A spot was selected on the south fork of the American river, 35 m. N.E. of the fort at Coloma, and work had begun on the mill when, on Jan. 24, 1848, Marshall picked up in the mill-race the first gold nugget found in California. The discovery of gold on his own land by his own man was, ironically, the cause of Sutter's ruin, for his men deserted him, the newcomers pillaged his property, and he died in the East a poor man; but it was the foundation of the city's development and of the rapid settlement of the whole State. The site of the present city was surveyed in 1848 and the name Sacramento (already in common use) was adopted. The first sale of town lots was held in Jan. 1849. The Federal census reported a population of 6,82o in 185o, and the city was incorporated in that year. For some time condi tions were chaotic, as in most new mining towns. Trouble with "squatters" almost led to local war in 185o. In 1849 the city offered $1,000,00o for the honour of being the State capital. The legislature met here in 1852, and in 1854 it was chosen as the permanent seat of government. Three times between 1849 and 1853, and again in 1862, the city suffered from devastating floods, and in 1852 two-thirds of it was destroyed by fire. Further dan ger from flood has been averted by strong levees and by filling in the low land along the river. By 1856 the Sacramento Valley rail road (the first steam railway in California, built to accommodate the business developed in the gold mines) was completed to Fol som, 23 m. N.E. of Sacramento. Its chief engineer, Theodore D. Judah, took plans for a feasible route across the mountains to the capitalists in San Francisco and was laughed at as a dreamer. In Sacramento, however, he found four merchants (Stanford, Hop kins, Crocker and Huntington) who pledged their personal for tunes to secure the undertaking of the enterprise, and on Feb. 22, 1863, in Sacramento, the construction of the Central Pacific rail road across the Sierras was begun. On May io, 1869, at Promon tory Point, Utah, Senator Stanford drove the golden spike that united the section of road built from the West (in the face of tre mendous physical obstacles) with the section built from the East, and later in the month the first through train from the Atlantic Coast reached the city. Through the rest of the 19th century the growth of Sacramento was steady and gradual, and in 1900 the population was 29,282. Since then, accompanying the increasing productivity of its tributary territory (due largely to irrigation and completion of the great levee system) there has been a rapid commercial and industrial expansion. Between 190o and 192o the population considerably more than doubled. Between 1910 and 1928 the assessed valuation of property and the postal receipts each increased more than threefold, bank clearings more than five fold and building permits for the 18 years represented values aggregating $85,498,366.