John Augustus Sutter, a German native born to Swiss parents, was one of the first to recognize the Sacramento Valley for its potential as an agricultural empire, and his Hock Farm, established in 1841 on the Feather River just south of present-day Yuba City, was the site of the valley ’ s first large agricultural enterprise.

The Sacramento valley receives about 20 inches of rain annually, but the San Joaquin is very dry, often semi-arid desert in many places.

The two halves meet at the huge Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, which along with their tributaries drain the majority of the valley.

The valley is a vast agricultural region drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.

The one notable exception to the flat valley floor is Sutter Buttes, the remnants of an extinct volcano just to the northwest of Yuba City which is north of Sacramento.

The term Coast Range is used by the United States Geological Survey to refer only to the ranges south from the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington to the California-Mexico border ; and only the ranges west of Puget Sound, the Willamette valley, the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys or ' California Central Valley ' ( thereby excluding the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges ), and the Mojave ( High ) and Sonoran ( Low ) Deserts.

As a result, thirty-three settlers in Sonoma, assisted by volunteers from among the American settlers and Vacqueros from the many haciendas, in the Sacramento River valley, captured the Mexican garrison of Sonoma and raised a homemade flag with a bear and star ( the " Bear Flag ") to symbolize their taking control.

Vallejo was sent to Sutter's Fort in the Sacramento River valley, where he was kept a prisoner until August 1, 1846.

It is located in northern California, in the valley of the Sacramento River.

Before the arrival of European settlers in the 19th century, much of the Sacramento valley was taken up by seasonal wetlands and grasslands.

Despite the rich soils and favorable weather of the Central Valley, inhabitants of the valley who were unfamiliar with its natural rainfall patterns and started to practice intense irrigated agriculture on the arid land soon found themselves troubled by frequent floods in the Sacramento Valley and a general lack of water in the San Joaquin Valley.

Unlike the Sacramento Valley, the river system for which the San Joaquin Valley is named does not extend very far along the valley.

There are also plans for a high-speed rail line that will link the valley with San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Diego.

Interstate 80 cuts a northeast-to-southwest swath through the southern end of the valley, mostly through Sacramento and Yolo Counties, and ends at the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Other principal routes in the region include State Route 99, which runs along the valley's eastern edge, roughly parallel to I-5, from Sacramento until its northern terminus in Red Bluff ; State Route 20, which traverses the valley from west to east on its route from State Route 1 in Mendocino County to the Donner Pass ; State Route 49, named in honor of the California Gold Rush and running through many old mining towns in the foothills of the valley ; and State Route 45, which runs along the course of the Sacramento River roughly ten miles ( 20 km ) east of I-5.

The Union Pacific Railroad serves the valley, with its principal north-south line from Oakland, California to Portland, Oregon, via Sacramento, Marysville, Chico, and Redding.

The state's largest river by discharge, the Sacramento River, flows through the northern third of the valley, known as the Sacramento Valley.

Debris, silt, and millions of gallons of water used daily by the mine caused extensive flooding, prompting Sacramento valley farmers to file the lawsuit Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company.

Owing to the distance and difficulty in traveling from the valley of Ribeira da Cruz, in 1757, the parish vicar ( Father Agostinho Pereira de Lacerda ) requested that the bishop of Angra ( at that time Brother Valério do Sacramento ) anex Caveira to the neighboring parish of São Caetano da Lomba ( even though it was part of the neighboring municipality ).

Sacramento County officials continue to lobby for the construction of a flood-control dry dam above Rancho Murieta, which would open much of the lower Cosumnes River valley to development.

Since 1953 California has led the nation in enacting guarantees that public business shall be publicly conducted, but not until this year did the lawmakers in Sacramento plug the remaining loopholes in the Brown Act.

* 1860 – The first Pony Express rider reaches Sacramento, California.

* African American archaeology in Sacramento, California pdf

* 1860 – The first successful United States Pony Express run from Saint Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California begins.

* California State University, Sacramento ( CSUSACM )

* Robert M. Timm, Hopland Research & Extension Center, University of California, Hopland, California ; Rex O. Baker, California State Polytechnic University-Pomona ( retired ), Corona, California ; Joe R. Bennett, USDA APHIS Wildlife Services, Taft, California ; and Craig C. Coolahan, USDA APHIS Wildlife Services, Sacramento, California, " Coyote Attacks: An Increasing Suburban Problem " ( March 3, 2004 ).

It was financed and built through " The Big Four " ( who called themselves " The Associates "): Sacramento, California businessmen Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins.

The induction ceremony was on December 1, 2009 in Sacramento, California.

Schliemann went to California in early 1851 and started a bank in Sacramento buying and reselling over a million dollars of gold dust in just six months.

Category: Mayors of Sacramento, California

* 1848 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento.

On August 20, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, announced that Robinson was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts in Sacramento.

Johann August Sutter ( February 15, 1803 – June 18, 1880 ) was a Swiss pioneer of California known for his association with the California Gold Rush by the discovery of gold by James W. Marshall and the mill making team at Sutter's Mill, and for establishing Sutter's Fort in the area that would eventually become Sacramento, the state's capital.

Young's party continued on into California trapping and trading from Sacramento to Los Angeles, returning to Taos in April, 1830 after trapping along the Colorado River.

* Kit Carson Middle School, Sacramento, California

The Kings played there until 1985, when the franchise moved to California and became the Sacramento Kings.

One anecdote describes Thomas Hunt Morgan banning the Friden calculator from his department at Caltech, saying " Well, I am like a guy who is prospecting for gold along the banks of the Sacramento River in 1849.

" He attended graduate school at Harvard University for one year and worked at the state legislature in Sacramento.

The Cramps, whose core members were from Sacramento by way of Akron, had debuted at CBGB in November 1976, opening for the Dead Boys.

One of the oldest records of the word samba appeared in Pernambuco magazine's O Carapuceiro, dated February 1838, when Father Miguel Lopes Gama of Sacramento wrote against what he called the samba d ' almocreve – not referring to the future musical genre, but a kind of merriment ( dance drama ) popular for black people of that time.

After working on a number of railroads in the Northeast, Judah was hired as the Chief Engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad in California.

Failing to raise funds for the project in San Francisco, he succeeded in signing up four Sacramento merchants — the " Big Four ": Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker.

However, that didn't always apply, as WSBK-TV in Boston was branded " UPN 38 " and KMAX-TV in Sacramento was branded " UPN 31 ," for example.

Judah was chief engineer for the newly formed Sacramento Valley Railroad in 1852, the first railroad built west of the Mississippi River.

Display ads for the CPRR and UPRR the week the rails were joined on May 19, 1869 UPRR & CPRR " Great American Over-Land Route " Timetable cover 1881When the golden spike was driven, the rail network was not yet connected to the Atlantic or Pacific, but merely connected Omaha and Sacramento.

The fort is famous for its association with the Donner Party, the California Gold Rush and the formation of Sacramento.

Repeated floods and increased demand for Sacramento River water saw a plethora of massive changes to the environment beginning in the 20th century.

Capable of absorbing enormous flood flows and storing the water for use in prolonged drought as well as navigation and electricity generation, it gave inhabitants of the Sacramento Valley nearly complete control over the whims of the river.

Part of the purpose of constructing dams on the Sacramento was to regulate flows for irrigation agriculture purposes.

A third major canal, the Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel, exists not for irrigation purposes but rather to facilitate navigation of large oceangoing ships from the Delta to the city of Sacramento.

Wildlife along the Sacramento has been hurt severely by the heavy usage of Sacramento River water for agriculture and urban areas, and pollution caused by pesticides, nitrates, mine tailings, acid mine drainage and urban runoff.

Located along the Pacific Flyway, the sprawling marshlands of the Sacramento Valley were originally an important stop for migratory birds ; only a few wetlands remain today, either preserved or artificially constructed.

River control has prevented the Sacramento from its natural flooding, braiding and course-changing patterns, which are important for the maintenance of existing wetlands and the creation of new ones.

Sherman, along with Ord, assisted in surveys for the sub-divisions of the town that would become Sacramento.

On January 24, 1848 James W. Marshall, a foreman working for Sacramento pioneer John Sutter, found shiny metal in the tailrace of a lumber mill Marshall was building for Sutter on the American River.