Thursday, December 10, 2015

OldSac underground :ep 1


I am going to have to be completely honest when it comes to the underground old sac tour. I didn’t think it was going to be very interesting. I presumed it was going to be a generalized tour of old sac that provided information that any person that lived in Sacramento would already be aware of. Little did I know it provided information on topics I probably would’ve never been able to think of myself? I’m fairly new to Sacramento so I didn’t know very much history behind the establishment of the capital city as it is. We learned about some of the first businesses/business owners in Sacramento, the trials and tribulations of physical architectural development with buildings, and who settled in the city to make it become what it is.

On the tour we went underground where the city level was previously in the 1800’s. What caused the leaders of Sacramento to make Sacramento be built up was because of the massive amounts of rain. Every time it rained the Sacramento River would overflow and leave the whole city underwater. The most memorable rain period was that of the beginning of 1862.The great Flood of 1862 was the largest rainfall period ever recorded in Sacramento history. It occurred from December 1861 to January 1862.The settlers in Sacramento became aware that if they didn’t do something about the flooding they’d be living underwater. They decided to raise building and roads. They also incorporated mountainous alley ways that would drain the road from the tremendous amounts of rain water.

Kyson Barnes

Besides the tough times that delayed the capitol development I always wondered why Sacramento became the capitol; the tour offered answers. California, unlike other states has a series of major cities including San Diego Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco. After going on the tour in old town Sacramento I was notified it had previously been located in Vallejo and San Jose before being established in Sacramento. One of the reasons was because of Sacramento’s central inland location at the base of the foothills, it was major distribution center for Gold Rush activities where many people would settle and trade goods. Also because of the cities organization compared to others cities in California at the time. Although it wasn’t the largest city, Sacramento had been planned with street grids and had a government in place. To add on to that, many of the most powerful people in the state were in Sacramento, John Sutter and John Marshall, who played a large role in the gold rush

This just made me think . . . History makes sense. Yes I know you may be thinking what? Of course it makes sense. What do you mean? What I mean is that in history the present things may not seem to make sense, but if you take a look behind the scenes everything makes sense. It isn’t just some made up corny curiosity that I questioned why Sacramento was the capitol. My mom and I have had conversations about why San Francisco or Los Angeles wasn’t the capitol. It all makes sense now. In simple terms, the development of Sacramento was more organized at the time and probably had more “hype”.

I believe the Welcome to Paris walk would be great for my arrival to Paris. It could be overwhelming just arriving to a foreign country being almost totally unaware of the social norms and some of the basic aspects of life that just aren’t present on the internet. On this tour I will be able to ask any questions upon arrival. I know there will be some things that only a local historian could answer, and that will fill the void between me, the internet and Paris.

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