California's Capital Region: The Sacramento Valley

Left: The Sacramento River and Levee from Front Street.
COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
Right: Steamers on the Upper Sacramento River.
COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
while law and order was being furthered downtown. The
Sacramento City Council in was established 1920 to help
organize the city government further. Former journalist Clyde
Seavey took on the city manager position and instituted new
reforms to clean up the city of crime and general blight.
Around this time water lines were laid and filtered by the
newly formed Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which
was publicly owned and operated. Clean water helped to
attract even more new businesses and individuals to
Sacramento, something that was a novel idea at the time (but
added to one’s overall health and wellbeing).
Paved roads would soon connect Sacramento to San
Francisco and other neighboring central valley towns. Schools,
town halls, and churches were being added monthly.
Even baseball found a new home with the establishment of
a minor league team called the Sacramento Salons who played
continuously until 1976. The city was without a team for a very
long stretch until the year 2000, when the Sacramento River
Cats reintroduced baseball to the city.
The Great Depression affected the Sacramento region
heavily in the 1930s. Canneries and other large-scale
employment operations saw profits fall, and over 15,000 of the
cities’ occupants found themselves unemployed. Shantytowns
began to emerge around the area, and even local charities
crumbled under the weight of mass unemployment. Relief
finally came under the New Deal programs instituted by
CALIFORNIA’S CAPITAL REGION - THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY
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