New tours into Sacramento’s hidden underground begin July 10

Posted by Sarah on Jun 28, 2010

Hiding beneath Sacramento’s sidewalks is a network of underground walkways and spaces created when the city raised its streets to prevent flooding in the 1860s. Starting this July, the Historic Old Sacramento Foundation will offer tours of that hidden underground.

In 1862, California’s largest ever recorded storm turned the Sacramento Valley into a huge inland sea. The legislature temporarily left Sacramento in order to continue business as usual, steamboats rescued Sacramentans from their homes, and Governor Leland Stanford went by boat to his 1862 inauguration.

Hoping to keep the city afloat long into the future (since even without major storms, flooding at the American and Sacramento rivers junction was not uncommon), the city became the first on the West Coast to raise its streets.

Evidence of the street’s rise of 10 to 12 feet can be seen in various parts of town — there are skylights into the underground on J Street sidewalks, many alleys dip below the current street level, and pieces of brick wall protrude from roadsides where they don’t seem to belong.

The new tours will enter the underground, revealing the once-first-floor doorways and windows that now lead into basements, brick retaining walls protecting buildings from the elevated roadways, and secret spaces once used for tiny underground shops.

Tours are $15, $10 for kids, and start at the Sacramento History Museum, 10 blocks from the Sacramento Hostel. Tours run hourly, Thursday - Sunday, July 10 - October 31. For reservations, call (916) 808-4980 or e-mail jwest@cityofsacramento.org.

Several other tours also depart from the history museum, including an architecture tour and one focused on the Gold Rush. These tours cost $7.