Sacramento 1849

In the Spring of 1849, Bayard Taylor was in California as a correspondent for Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. He sketched the new community of Sacramento City before any brick buildings were constructed and the site was merely a collection of frame buildings along the river front. In less than two years, the burgeoning city would stretch outward from the Sacramento River to a point some two miles east. Centrally located, the city soon became a hub of activity, with a developed waterfront, and steam and sail boats loaded with commerce bringing needed supplies to the city's merchants, as well as to those of the mining camps to the east. California received statehood the following year and Sacramento became the official State Capitol in 1854. The rest, as they say, is history.