Displays of electric light in Sacramento go back to 1879, and during a remodel in 1892 enough electrical outlets were added to power the 1400 incandescent lights on the Capitol Building which greeted the New Year of 1893. During the "Electric...
This April 13, 1934, photograph captures the close quarters and soiled floor of the L Street Arena, located at 223 L Street. Spectators take in one of seven supporting card fights prior to the heavyweight headline bout putting local Galt hero Jack...
Pictured is the California State Automobile Association building as it sat on November 23, 1942, at the corner of Seventeenth and L Streets. Just six years earlier, thieves broke into the building and took the organization's safe which contained...
The California State Library and Courts Building and its Sierra white granite exterior shines in this 1929 photograph. Completed just a year earlier, the building was constructed with five floors, including a basement, and designed to provide...
This January 1, 1900, photograph looks northerly from the dome of the California State Capitol building toward the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament at Eleventh and K Streets. The steeple on the immediate right of the photograph is that of the...
The Central Pacific Railroad’s “Governor Stanford” chugs by in this 1863 photograph. The 4-4-0 locomotive was built a year earlier by the Norris Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then brought to San Francisco by sailing...
Making its way to Promontory Point, Utah, in May 1869, is the Central Pacific Railroad’s locomotive “Jupiter,” known also as number 60. Once there, the legendary driving of the golden spike would consummate the nation’s first...
Pictured in early 1938 is the corner of Broadway and Land Park Drive. By November of the same year, the space would be home to the 200,000 dollar Tower Theater. Visible are billboards; one implores the use of Sacramento for conventions while the...
Taken on April 5, 1937, this photograph captures the entry to the Goodrich Silvertown building at 1200 I Street. On the right side of the photograph, two young boys are peering through the storefront window at First World War ephemera. President...
This 1948 photograph of the Goodyear Tire Store at 1724 Tenth Street reveals the scale of the building which measured some 23,000 square feet in area. In 1934, Sacramento's Goodyear branch became the highest seller of Goodyear products in the...
This September 9, 1895, photograph captures the gleam of the Grand Electric Carnival on K Street, between Eighth and Ninth Streets. Strings of lights hang from poles and crisscross K Street. The event was held to celebrate the unprecedented long...
Shown at the Grant Union High School swimming pool in 1936 are a few Sacramento Interwar luminaries, including, right to left, Grant’s first principal William Rutherford; Sacramento City Councilman and future Sacramento City Mayor Tom Monk;...
This view of the Hotel Sacramento from across the street circa 1920s features automobiles, pedestrians and streetcars, very similar to postcard BBSAC476, but a decade later. The California State Capitol Building on the right appears in full color...
This 1865 photograph offers a view down J Street, showing, to the right, both the Metropolitan Baths and B.F. Hastings and Company. Hastings was a long standing bank in Sacramento and held distinction as the western terminus of the Pony Express...
Taken in circa 1975, this photo of the K Street Mall shows not simply pedestrians crossing at Ninth and K Streets, but the diversity that would come to define so much of latter twentieth-century Sacramento. Population distribution for Sacramento,...
This circa 1980 photograph shows a man walking a bicycle across the venerable I Street Bridge, built in 1911 to replace two earlier bridges on the same spot. It is a double-decked bridge, offering pedestrian and rail traffic on the lower level and...
This circa 1948 postcard shows Gate One at McClellan Field. Just 12 years earlier, on May 7, 1936 - and after a visit from General H. "Hap" Arnold - it was decided that a 7 million dollar repair and supply depot would be established. When it was...
Serious but beguiling eyes look toward the camera in this 1914 photo from McKinley School at Seventh and “G.” The school replaced the venerable Union School which was closed down just a decade earlier. With the growth of industry within and...
Sacramento’s Memorial Auditorium at 1515 J Street often served as a boxing venue. It is pictured here in 1935, readied to host a boxing match. The same year that this photograph was taken, the 3,500-seat building was host to the Pacific Coast...
