🇺🇸 United States · West Coast and California
Sacramento is the capital of California and one of those cities that surprise you with their mix of history and modern life. Founded in the heat of the gold rush, today it combines the old quarter of Old Sacramento —with its wooden boardwalks, its 19th-century buildings and the line of the first transcontinental railroad— with a food scene that turned it into the 'American farm-to-fork capital', thanks to the agricultural wealth of the Central Valley all around it.
The civic heart is the California State Capitol, an imposing neoclassical building surrounded by a tree-filled park where the state government works. A few blocks away you'll find a revitalized downtown, the historic Midtown neighborhood with its restaurants and galleries, and the meeting of the Sacramento and American rivers, perfect for a stroll, a bike ride or a boat trip.
This guide covers the essentials of Sacramento with a practical eye: how to visit the Capitol and the gold rush and railroad museums, where to eat well off the back of the area's agricultural abundance, how to get around and which side trips to make. It is a capital on a human scale, easy to handle and with a huge amount of history to tell.
Before the Europeans arrived, the area was home to the Nisenan and other Maidu peoples. In 1839, the Swiss John Sutter founded the colony of New Helvetia (Nueva Helvecia) near here and built Sutter's Fort. The city's fate changed forever in January 1848, when gold was discovered at Coloma, on the American River, a few kilometers away: the California Gold Rush broke out and thousands of prospectors —the 'forty-niners' of 1849— turned Sacramento into the great river port and supply center for the mining region. The city grew at breakneck speed despite fires and floods, and in 1854 it was named the capital of California. Later it became the western terminus of the Pony Express and, above all, the western end of the First Transcontinental Railroad, opened in 1869 and driven by the 'Big Four' (Stanford, Huntington, Crocker and Hopkins). That railroad and mining heritage is preserved today in Old Sacramento and at the California State Railroad Museum. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The golden state of the Pacific: land of dozens of Native peoples and of the Franciscan missions, forged by the gold rush of 1849, today the largest economy in the United States and the cradle of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and legendary parks such as Yosemite and Sequoia.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before Sacramento existed, the valley where the Sacramento and American rivers meet had been home for thousands of years to the Nisenan (a group of the Maidu people) and other Indigenous peoples. They lived in villages on the riverbanks, drawing on salmon fishing, hunting, oak acorns and a fertile setting. Their world would change drastically with the arrival of the Europeans and, above all, of American settlers.
The first European-style settlement was founded in 1839 by the Swiss Johann (John) Sutter, an entrepreneur who obtained an enormous land grant from the Mexican government —California was then part of Mexico. There he established the colony of New Helvetia ('New Switzerland') and built Sutter's Fort, an adobe fort that became a busy center of trade, farming and ranching, as well as the arrival point for the pioneers crossing the continent on the California Trail.
For years Sutter's Fort was the heart of the region and a refuge for settlers who arrived exhausted after terrible crossings, such as the famous and tragic Donner Party. But the fate of that small agricultural empire was about to turn on its head because of a discovery that would take place very close by, on the American River.
On 24 January 1848, James W. Marshall, while building a sawmill for Sutter at Coloma on the American River, found nuggets of gold. The attempt to keep the find secret failed: the news spread like wildfire and set off the California Gold Rush, one of the greatest migratory movements in United States history. Ironically, the discovery ruined Sutter, whose lands and workers were overrun by the avalanche of prospectors.
In 1849 tens of thousands of people arrived from all over the country and the world —the famous 'forty-niners', named for the year 1849— in search of a fortune. Sacramento, thanks to its position at the confluence of the rivers and as a river port navigable from San Francisco Bay, was transformed almost overnight into the great supply city and gateway to the mining areas of the Sierra Nevada. Merchants, haulers and suppliers made as much of a fortune as many miners, or more.
The city grew at a chaotic pace, with improvised streets, shops, hotels and saloons. Its population shot up and, along with the dynamism, came the problems: devastating fires and, above all, the flooding of the rivers, which would force extraordinary engineering decisions in the years that followed.
That dizzying growth made Sacramento a key piece of the new state of California, which joined the United States in 1850. After passing through several provisional seats, the state capital was fixed at Sacramento in 1854, and years later the imposing neoclassical Capitol that dominates downtown today was built (finished in the 1870s).
But the city paid a price for its position beside the rivers: floods were recurrent and sometimes catastrophic. The great floods of 1861-1862, which left much of the city under water, led to a remarkable engineering decision: to raise the level of downtown streets and entire buildings by several meters, as well as reinforcing the levees. The old ground floors were turned into basements and underground passages, which today can be walked on the famous 'Underground Tours' of Old Sacramento.
This stage consolidated Sacramento as a political, commercial and transport center, with an identity of its own forged between the gold, the rivers and the constant struggle against the water. The city was also getting ready to star in another decisive chapter of American history: the arrival of the railroad.
Sacramento was at the center of one of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century: the First Transcontinental Railroad. The Central Pacific Railroad, headquartered in the city, was in charge of building the western section, which had to cross the imposing barrier of the Sierra Nevada. The work began in Sacramento in 1863 and pushed east until it met the Union Pacific at Promontory Summit (Utah) in May 1869, completing the rail connection between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Behind the project were the so-called 'Big Four': Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins, Sacramento merchants who became immensely rich and powerful. Stanford went on to be governor of California and founded Stanford University. His restored mansion downtown and the California State Railroad Museum keep this story alive.
Building the Sierra section was brutally hard and relied heavily on the labor of thousands of Chinese workers, whose effort and sacrifice proved decisive and for a long time went largely unacknowledged. The railroad transformed the economy of the West and cemented Sacramento as a transport hub. Earlier, the city had already been the western terminus of the Pony Express, the legendary horseback mail service of 1860-1861.
Through the 20th century, Sacramento grew as the administrative capital of an ever more powerful and populous state. The state government, along with military bases and, later, the technology and services sector, diversified its economy. The Central Valley around it became established as one of the most productive agricultural regions on the planet, and the city became its market and logistics center.
In recent decades, Sacramento has revitalized its downtown and its riverfront. Old Sacramento was restored and designated a National Historic Landmark, preserving its gold rush atmosphere. Neighborhoods such as Midtown flourished with galleries, bars and restaurants, and the opening of the Golden 1 Center arena (home of the NBA's Sacramento Kings) and the DOCO district gave downtown life a boost.
Drawing on the agricultural wealth around it, the city reinvented itself as the American capital of the 'farm-to-fork' movement, with a vibrant food scene that it celebrates every September with a big festival. Today Sacramento combines its institutional weight, its pioneer and railroad history, and a culinary identity that have put it back on the map of Californian tourism.