Sacramento rediscovers its river

Sunset, August, 1990

Sacramento rediscovers its river From the city's infancy, Sacramento's namesake river has proved both a blessing and a curse. The town's founding father John Sutter saw its potential in 1839, when he built a wharf on the waterway near its junction with the American River to supply his famous fort.

A decade later, the wharf became the jumpoff point for gold miners striking out for the Mother Lode. Enterprising merchants threw up shops, hotels, theaters, and saloons to take advantage of the human stampede. But the same river that delivered fools and their money to these entrepreneurs also inundated their businesses with rain-swollen waters in particularly wet winters.

The riverfront began a slow but steady decline in the 1870s, prompted by the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, which soon threw riverboat travel into obsolescence. Silt from hydraulic mining upstream also barred passage of the big steamboats that had plied the waters between Sacramento and San Francisco Bay.

By the 1950s, Sacramento's downtown riverfront had degenerated into a notorious skid row. If you had braved the perils of the area and strolled down to Front Street, it would have been difficult to find the once-proud river, hidden as it was by a bleak concrete floodwall, built by Southern Pacific in 1914.

Lately, however, the city has made great strides to reclaim its riverfront heritage and open up new access to the water. You can walk along a re-created wharf or down to the river's edge; picnic in a waterfront park or dine dockside at a new marina; tour the river or spend the night in a stern-wheeler; or ride in a steam train or bike along a levee.

On torrid summer days, just being within sight of the water can make you feel cooler. Excellent museums near the riverfront add to the incentives for planning a detour if you're passing through town on Interstate 5 or 80.

On the historic waterfront

The capital's riverfront revitalization is particularly apparent in Old Sacramento, between I Street and Capitol Mall. A rough-planked wharf has replaced the floodwall that stood between the river and California's largest remaining collection of gold rush buildings. Cranes replicating ones placed here in the 1860s to lift cargo from ships to freight cars enhance the illusion of a working waterfront, as do the wooden re-creations of buildings that served the transportation industries of this vital crossroads.

The original California Steam Navigation Company depot, near K and Front streets, was the embarkation point for steamboat passengers and freight traveling downstream or upriver; the rebuilt version now houses a bakery and a visitor information center (stop in for walking-tour maps and suggestions on other Old Sacramento attractions not mentioned here). Overlooking the river, replicas of the C.S.N.C. warehouse and its two-story Italianate office are being converted into a seafood restaurant and take-out cafe.

Near the site where ground was broken for the western terminus of the transcontinental railroad, the Central Pacific Railroad freight depot now shades passengers waiting to board a steam-powered excursion train operated by the nearby California State Railroad Museum. From 10 to 5 on weekends and holidays through Labor Day, trains with both open and closed coaches leave on the hour for 7-mile, 45-minute rides south along the river; fare is $4 for adults, $2 for ages 6 through 17.

On the river below the wharf floats a replica of the Globe. The original was an 1833 packet brig that sailed around Cape Horn to San Francisco in 1849. The following year, it wound up docked in Sacramento, converted into a roofed storeship selling goods to miners. The replica was constructed using shipbuilding methods of that period, and it's now stocked with blasting powder cases and other goods, as well as an interactive exhibit and displays on Sacramento River history. You can usually get inside for a free look from 9 to 5 Thursdays through Mondays.

Dine or sleep aboard

a moored paddle boat ...

Old Sacramento's most prominent new waterfront fixture, the Delta King, is a more recent example of a vessel converted to dockside use. A five-decked riverboat nearly a football field long, it's now a floating hotel and restaurant moored permanently at the foot of K Street. The Delta King's saga (which has earned it a place on the National Register of Historic Places) parallels the rise, fall, and rebirth of the waterfront itself.

The elegant stern-wheeler and its mate, the Delta Queen, were built in Scotland and Stockton in the 1920s, the last of their breed. They carried Prohibition-era bon vivants, who could drink and gamble legally as soon as the boats shoved off on overnight runs between San Francisco and Sacramento. But the repeal of Prohibition and the Great Depression brought an end to the nightly runs in 1939. During World War II, the boats were painted battleship gray and pressed into duty as troop transports, hospital ships, and navy barracks.