When Streetcars Roamed the Capital Region
The classic car system predated light rail by almost a century
While many of us believe that Sacramento’s light rail trains were innovative when they began tooting their way throughout the Capital Region in the 1980s, the current system is actually the reboot of a suburban trolley that slid, wended and awoke its way through the area many decades before.
Sacramento City College Was Once the Only College Between Stockton and Chico
Step inside the 108-year-old Land Park legend
“I’ve been here more than half my life,” says Sac City President Albert Garcia. “I love the history of this college. It gives everything we do here a richer context. Don’t forget, for many years, as far as colleges in the area, we were it. Just as we began by being part of a high school campus.”
The Violent, Bloody Folsom Prison Escape of 1903
New book details a dark time in the prison’s history
The prisoners made makeshift knives, or shivs, and used stolen razors during their siege. One prison guard died, and two were injured.
Anna Judah: Far More Than Theodore Judah’s Victorian Housewife
Through her artistry, she brought the transcontinental railroad to life — before it was built
You wouldn’t know that a tragic love story led to the railroad that connected the East and West coasts for the first time.
Whatever Became of the Auburn Dam?
One of the largest flood control projects in the country was never built
The Auburn Dam could well be the most talked about water storage and flood control facility in the country that simply doesn’t exist — no matter how much it’s been argued about, advocated for and against, legislatively proposed and architecturally rendered.
With ‘Boulevard Dreams,’ the Sacramento History Museum Focuses on Lowriders — as Cars and as a Cultural Touchstone
A ‘paradigm shift’ for a treasured local institution
More than two dozen 1950s and ‘60s vintage cars were parked in a semi-circle in front of the Sacramento History Museum’s entrance, heralding attendees to enter a world they had likely encountered over the past several decades but may have feared or simply misunderstood.
Is Stockton Poised to Become a Branch Office of the Marvel Universe?
City officials are trying to lure the superheroes
Maybe Stockton should rebrand itself Upper Tinseltown. This port city, less than an hour’s drive from the capital — and the setting for a number of Hollywood films over the years — is on a mission to make itself a presence in the next “Fantastic Four” movie, due to be released in 2025
The Back Story: That Other Time We Had a Local Baseball Team
The Sacramento Solons still evoke fond (and funny) memories
As a team, the Solons had more stops and starts in the area than light rail at rush hour. There were iterations of the club in 1903 and 1905, from 1909 to 1914, from 1918 to 1960, and finally, from 1974 to 1976.
The Back Story: The Rocket Company that Roared
Aerojet was once a major player in the region — until it wasn’t
If you’re ever on Jeopardy and you’re asked to name an American company that not only helped the country and its allies win a war (the Big One) and, a bit more than two decades later, helped send it to the moon — before getting mired in a sludge of litigation — remember one of this region’s more complicated and often controversial sagas: Aerojet.
The Back Story: McGeorge School of Law
The truth and folklore behind Sacramento’s biggest law school
Prof. Michael Hunter Schwartz recounts stories about some big names that passed through McGeorge School of Law.