Thursday, December 10, 2015

The Raising of Sacramento

     In our recent tour of Underground Old Sacramento we learned that the city had to be raised from the level of the Sacramento River to its current lever due to constant and severe flooding when it rained. What i found most interesting was the process of raising the buildings, streets and side walks and how they completed each project. I also found it odd that business were raised to the new city level before sidewalks resulting in ditches customers would have to climb in and out of.

    I did not know it was possible to raise buildings in 1866 by hand and jack. It is a engineering feat in my opinion. Each business had to pay 50% of the cost to raise the building and for thriving business like Wells Fargo bank this was not problem but for business that could not afford the cost, owners saved for quite some time. The Process involved as many at 200 Building jacks under one building being cranked simultaneously by hand. It was highly important that the jacks stayed level or the building could collapse.  The workers were monitored through the entire process. After reaching a point workers would fill the space with bricks, lower the jacks and repeat the process.

     After a majority of the building had been raised the side walks and streets were raised at different times resulting in uneven streets. In many cases people would fall from the upper level sidewalk or street to the lower level side walk or street. It reached the point of the local news paper publishing a list of those who sustained injury during the previous days. I find that hilarious. Eventually all the Streets, sidewalks and business were raised. The allies had been left to form a dip in the middle which helped with draining water.


     Shops and business like the one pictured above were those that filled Old Sacramento and had to be raised. Bars, shoe shines, general stores and doctors lined the uneven streets of Sacramento in its early years of reconstruction.

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